Here's how you can master software engineering through the best self-learning resources.

Doing your own PoC (e.g. client - server type of program with persistence and UI) and regularly completing few challenges here and there on platforms like HackerRank should be useful to start. However to move to the next step you would need to read a lot of other peoples (ideally enterprise level) code and understand why people writing it the way it is. Also re-read Clean Code different aspect articles every other week until you are able to recognize those in the code that you read and potentially try to update / improve.

Reading & Writing lots of code There is no substitute for hands-on coding. 1) Create your self-taught projects on GitHub. 2) Contribute to open-source projects & review code written by others. 3) Have your own blog.

One thing I found useful in my career is putting self learning into experimenting through small pocs(more of useful), that(fail fast and safe) gave me more confidence when have to do at enterprise level. The second more important factor is the community of practice, learning from other technologists's experiences.

Books are great for in-depth knowledge gains. However, do not get trapped in reading books and ONLY reading books. Practice makes perfect.

Digital learning is great, but don't just sleep on book (physical or e-book) make them your daily bread and butter! > Deep Dives: Unlike courses, books offer in-depth coverage of specific topics - master fundamentals or explore the latest trends. >Expert Insights: Learn from industry leaders! Gain best practices & coding standards used by pros. >Offline Advantage: Read on your commute, at the beach - no internet needed! >Active Learning: Don't just read, DO! Practice examples & solve problems to solidify understanding. Books + online courses + coding practice = well-rounded learning. Level up your skills and always remember power of the written word awaits for you.

Books on the relevant subject is a necessary read. Be it a physical book or an ebook. They provide more information than an article or a blog writeup. One must keep a reading habit, so as to take the best from the book and that authors mind share. Today, we have articles, blogs and youtube videos and video trainings available on a click of a button, its good to mix and match gathering the information from all of these types of resources. Yet reading a book and grasping their core allows one to think and visualize how to apply and adapt the learned info into one's practice.

I think it's important to have the "lay of the land" before diving into any new subject. Because of this, I believe it is best to read (e)books after watching digital content. Working in this order helps develop a general understanding from which someone can dive more into the details by reading a book. In my opinion, books should take more of a supplementary role with the understanding that they are key to becoming an expert in a subject.

If you want to be a software engineer and not just a coder then you are going to need some theory. Books like Intro to Algorithms by Cormen et. al. (sometimes called the CLRS book) provides background on algorithms and O(n). Computer Organization by Patterson and Hennessy teaches how the hardware you are writing code for actually works. Top all of that off with an OS book like OSTEP - Op Sys Three Easy Pieces. With that background, you now know enough to start designing systems that can perform well. Get a book on SCRUM and Agile to develop the skills in managing a software project. Throw on a book or two for your preferred language. To be more than just a coder that fo0llows other directions, there's a lot of work to do.

Participating in coding challenges improve problem solving skills, improve coding proficiency. It also help to write clean and efficient code. Coding challenges often provide motivation to keep learning and improving.

Engage with platforms like LeetCode, HackerRank, and CodeSignal to tackle coding problems and improve problem-solving skills. These platforms offer various difficulty levels and competitive programming opportunities. Personal Experience: Regularly solving problems on LeetCode helped me prepare for technical interviews and significantly sharpened my algorithmic thinking and coding speed.

This is one the best activities that you can do in order to improve your logic as well as understand the different topics, there is not better way to understand complex topic than practice. So first use courses, write some basis code, and once you have enough knowledge you can challenge yourself with coding challenges.

You might be an excellent coder, but without practicing coding challenges, you won't be able to solve problems within the 15-20 minute timeframe required to excel in a software engineering interview, and some problems are really hard and need a lot of practice. Out of all the coding platforms by far LeetCode has been the winner for me helping me succeed in coding interviews.

Coding challenges are fun and can be done alone or with groups. They will often require that you solve puzzles that may not be part of your every day job, but they’ll make you a better programmer.

Getting to know more correct coding principles, handwriting and how famous people code, the challenge of solving international problems is one of the other advantages of participating in open source project.

Contributing to open source is an excellent way to learn collaboration and large-scale project management. However, focus on software you actually use yourself. Make meaningful contributions, such as useful features or bug fixes, rather than minor changes just to claim involvement. Read through the code guidelines and other PRs of the project before opening a new one. This approach ensures your contributions are genuinely valuable and impactful. Start with small tasks to get familiar with the workflow, and then gradually take on more significant responsibilities.

Contribute to open source projects on GitHub to gain practical experience and collaborate with other developers. Start with issues labeled "good first issue" to ease into contributions. This involvement builds a portfolio and enhances your coding skills. Personal Experience: Contributing to an open-source web app on GitHub allowed me to learn best practices in code review, version control, and collaboration, while also expanding my professional network.

For me personally this is the best way to learn. Why? - You become good at reading code, which is a really underrated skill. Everyone can write new code, but it is more difficult to understand code written by others.

Contributing to the Linux Kernel “bonding“ driver (way back when…), was probably the most important project I ever participated in. Gaining programming skills and problem solving abilities, practical coding conventions and participation in a large scale projects, and collaborating with the most amazing people I ever had the chance to work with - Dave Miller, Jeff Garzick and a few others. Not to mention the most enjoyable and fun mission I ever took part of in my entire career.

Join forums like Stack Overflow, Reddit (r/programming, r/learnprogramming), and participate in local or online meetups. Engage in discussions, seek advice, and stay updated with industry trends. Personal Experience: Being active in the Reddit programming community provided me with diverse perspectives on problem-solving and introduced me to new tools and methodologies I hadn't encountered before.

Joining a developer community nowadays for me is a no brainer. I can't imagine being a Kotlin developer and not being in Kotlin Slack. It's a place with people that are living the things you are going through and they are always welcome.

Great way to improve your skill is helping other people. You get to know what problems people are facing, then have better understanding of it yourself by explaining solutions to others. In addition to it, you’ll also learn from other talented and resourceful helpers!

Joining developer communities can be incredibly beneficial for both learning and networking. These communities often host forums, webinars, and live discussions where you can ask questions, share knowledge, and stay updated on industry trends. Active participation in these communities can also lead to mentorship opportunities and professional connections that could be invaluable for your career growth.

Engaging with dev communities can provide support, feedback and networking opportunities, such as LinkedIn groups, Dev.to, Stack Overflow and etc.

In my experience building projects is the best way to learn something new. When you dive into a project, you get to put theory into practice which helps reinforce learning and improve retention. Plus, working on a project gives you real-world insights that you cannot get just from reading. Over time, you will have a portfolio that will serve as a tangible evidence of your skills.

Personal projects are where things start to make sense. Often you work at companies where you are building on top of abstractions and you don’t get exposed to the lower level elements - even if a simple application. Personal projects allow you to build something from the ground up and discover what those foundations are, the choices you can or need to make when making those foundations, and trying things in a new way that is not exactly the way you would at work for the sake of learning.

Personal projects I believe are a very fast way of picking up on new technology or brushing up on existing ones. Going hands on let's you know whether the lessons learnt from the courses or documentation are actually down. It also helps with your problem solving skills. It's good to pick projects that will challenge you and help you get better understanding of your software engineering tools.

Following a tutorial is good, but building personal projects exposes you to new challenges and provides valuable experience in solving them. This process makes you a better engineer. You might think you know everything until you start building your own personal project.

I find personal projects invaluable. My opinion : save everything to GitHub or your code repository of choice. Once I go through a workshop or study a technology as a theory without much practice I tend to forget it within a year. Studies show that most of the humans do! But if I create a small pet project and upload it as repository, I would remember my work for a much longer period. And in case I need a reminder I can go back to my repo, find my own notes/how-to/tutorials and refresh my skills in no time.

"Reading documentation" is an underrated skill, esp when you start. While old blogs and samples are helpful initially, mastering documentation helps a lot in the long run (l myself learnt it from my senior devs): 1. Keeping Up-to-Date versioning: Stay updated with new features, available methods and deprecations. 2. Avoiding Vulnerabilities: Follow security best practices from the official guidelines. 3. Troubleshooting: Use documented tips and common error explanations. 4. Best Practices: Adopt maintainers' recommended design patterns and practices. Regularly consulting documentation, official GitHub repos [Readme, GitHub issues, feature requests] makes you a more effective, knowledgeable developer about any x language/framework.

For expert mode, learn to read scientific papers from the field of CS. Read the paper side by side with code that implements the algorithm if possible. It is often possible to find slide decks from a course in the area of interest that lend examples and insight. When all else fails, contact the corresponding author of the paper. If you've put in some effort to understand, they are often eager to share.

One underrated way to learn best practices, clean code etc. for junior developers is going through pull requests of senior developers.

Create your own learning path, research for information about the different mandatory topics that you have to cover, once you do that, you can start with the learning using different techniques that you feel comfortable, each person learn in a different way, so explore yourself and be consistent and persistent with your learning, don't feel bad if you don't get some topic at the first time, look for different ways to learn but always keep learning.

Oft wird davon gesprochen, dass Legacy Programme die ?uncoolen“ Projekte sind und alle die neuen Programme und Technologien verwenden wollen. Ich vielmehr denke, dass Legacy Programme vor allem jungen Entwicklern helfen kann zu lernen wie man sich in bestehende Software einarbeitet, Programmiertechniken zu erkennen und anzuwenden und aus Probleml?sungen in den Produkten zu lernen.