Get Ahead of 99% of Software Engineers (Start This Now)

99% of software engineers work in the same ways, but that top 1% of "10x" developers do things differently. These are some of my biggest takeaways from observing many of these people and what makes them so incredibly effective as software engineers.
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Timestamps:
0:00 Become A 1% Software Developer
0:30 Subject Matter Experts
1:52 Top Software Engineers Know Their Place
2:14 Expand Your Impact Scope
4:00 Find The Right Mentor
4:47 Break The Software Developer Stereotype
5:47 Mastering Debugging Skills
6:34 Never Stop Learning
7:05 Stop Wasting Development Time
7:44 The Product-First Mentality
8:19 Avoid Career Complacency
9:09 Writing Clean Idiomatic Code
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[@MeharMutreja]

Great Video Conner. As a SDE who is just starting out, I would definitely try to inculcate a lot of these things. Thanks for making such videos.

[@deadlydiminuendo2161]

As a fullstack software engineer that hurts hahaha, anyway it makes sense if you want to be a 1% engineer you have to be a guru in something in specific. The advantage of being a “Jack of all trades” as you refer to us is that we capable to ship software from end to end without that much help from the outside, this is really good for developers who want to become entrepreneurs, or for management positions that need a holistic view of the IT department sorry for my english is not that good :)

[@ConnerArdman]

Yeah there's absolutely value to being a jack of all trades, they're just different paths. Also, I don't think being a fullstack engineer necessarily means you can't also be a subject matter expert in something. 95% of "fullstack" engineers I've met tend to actually be more specialized than they might say, but just also happen to have enough knowledge to work in other areas than that specialty. And sometimes that piece of knowledge they are an expert in involves both sides of the stack (server side rendering for example). Also, your English is perfect. I didn't realize it wasn't your first language until you said so 👍

[@sudo_garrett]

as a generalist you will always be very employable though. it’s beneficial in a different aspect. not a bad thing.

[@chriss87878]

A new Conner video is what i love to see

[@walteredmond7904]

So true I saw that js was valued the most on my team so I became that specialist. When the other js dev can’t handle the work I can come in an help his overfill. I am a front end dev for MS. Scope is massive. Is you are proactive in this area you’ll understand the problems at every level and able to rely that at the PM level

[@maduresenerd5716]

i spent a lot of time to figure out what is matter to become the best software engineer what i can be and stay a head of the majority and a found out this video was perfectly match my situation

[@jibolao]

If you have only one subscriber in the world, it’s me. I only just stumbled on one of your videos and I’ve caught myself watching more and more. You give your expert opinion on these common issues using awesome and relatable analogies and I love that. Time to put all this information to use. Thank you bro

[@ConnerArdman]

Thank you! I'm glad you're finding so much value from the content 😀

[@user-gm3lg8gp3m]

Thanks for the valuable info

[@ConnerArdman]

Thanks for watching 🤝

[@sojuthomas7727]

Point 8 is a golden one ❤

[@souvikkundu]

Thank you

[@iblamefafa6478]

Hello sir and sorry to bother you, Ive been learning how to code but genuinely lost cause i do not know which programming language i should focus on!can you suggest just ONE pls? Thank you

[@craiggazimbi]

Great video, Conner! As an Entry Level Developer, I found your insights really insightful. It would be amazing to have your mentorship to further enhance my skills. Keep up the fantastic work!"

[@Eehhaah]

How you started? I'm learning html & css , will start javascript in few days. How much time it needed to get a entry level job. My goal is to be frontend developer.

[@VinOnline]

I'm gonna be a junior in university. I really wanna find my niche or scope that I specialize in, but I'm still learning about all these different fields within software engineering.

[@ConnerArdman]

Don't worry about it too much. Half of university students don't know what they want to do, let alone what they want to sub-specialize in. Most of the "best" developers I worked with bounced around between roles before finding the one thing they were best at and enjoyed the most. Many did this for a very long time, which is perfectly fine too.

[@VinOnline]

@@ConnerArdman Thank you so much for the response. I'm on an internship right now and I feel like I've learned an insane amount of cool things from it, which I'm really happy about.

[@JudoboyAlex]

What's your opinion on Accessibility Engineer, which is even more specialized field from Frontend Engineer? Do you think Accessibility is too niche and not worth the effort?

[@ConnerArdman]

If that's what you find interesting and you can consistently find work doing it, then more power to you. More realistically though, it probably makes more sense to be a frontend engineer who happens to have a bit of a subspecialty in accessibility. That would likely be a more marketable skillset imo.

[@codesandtags]

I heard that in theory we should be generalist instead of specialist in this era. So this is a great topic to debate, depending the context, role and problem. I was wondering what do you think about the Software Architects? Once someone told me this is only a fancy “role” used for software engineers with more scope and soft skills

[@ConnerArdman]

Yeah there's no one-size-fits-all answer. It just depends on what your individual goals are, where you're working, etc. That said, for the purposes of this video (not just being successful, but being in the top 1%), I think some degree of specialization is usually necessary. As for software architects, I don't have a strong opinion tbh. I've never worked anywhere that had "architect" as a position, at least not one that I've interacted with. I've always worked in environments where architecture decisions were made by the team as a whole and led by tech leads. That system has always seemed to work well for teams I've been on, but that's not to say having a dedicated architects wouldn't have worked better, or that it wouldn't be a better choice for other teams.

[@codesandtags]

@@ConnerArdman I really appreciate your honest answer @CornnerArdman :) . To be honest, before I was trying to be specialist, technically speaking, but after that I realized that we need to have a balance, and now I have another mindset regarding to build a T Shape for knowledge. In few words, You need to know a little bit about everything, but you don't need to have the same deep of knowledge for everything, so it's like combining Generalist + Specialist. btw, really good content! please keep sharing the knowledge with the world. 🍻

[@cenunix]

Do you have a discord? Ever thought of starting one?

[@piedepew]

no

[@ConnerArdman]

I don’t. I might do it eventually, but probably not anytime soon.

[@wandacode]

My mentor is Chatgpt

[@user-km2ol4wz3x]

Brother, what are the best majors in programming? I am a beginner and I want to learn it myself

[@user-km2ol4wz3x]

The best majors in software engineering front end or back end or mobil developer

[@ConnerArdman]

You mean like university majors? Computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, informatics, applied math, etc. are all “good”. Just depends what interests you. Same is true with specialties like frontend, backend, etc. None are better than others, just depends what you’re interested in.

[@user-km2ol4wz3x]

​@@ConnerArdmanI am studying business administration at the university, but I want to learn back end or front end Because I do not like the Faculty of Management, but I have to stay in it

[@adam-nw5cn]

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 🎯 Traits of Top Software Engineers 02:21 📈 Advancing Levels and Saying No 04:13 Made with HARPA AI

[@emmanuelkofyagyapong6382]

Wait a second, are you saying loyalty to a corporation is not necessarily good?

[@ConnerArdman]

I just might be saying that 🙃

[@dalagamble3164]

I don’t agree. I feel you can be a expert in many specific areas that would make you more valuable then someone who is only well equipped in one area. Sure while as a software engineer I can say that’s extremely hard to just be experts in a lot of areas but If you were a expert in 10 areas vs someone is in 1 depending if that software engineer who is a 10 area expert is also is a expert in your area then that software engineer is more valuable than the software engineer with one expert. That will also save the company money by just hiring the engineer who is basically the jack of all trades.

[@ConnerArdman]

The point wasn't that you need to be an expert in exactly one thing and do nothing else. As I said in the video, the jack of all trades vs expert in 1 niche area comparison was an intentionally extreme example, and in reality you probably want to be somewhere in between. It also depends on the depth of each "area" that you choose to be an expert in. For example, you can be a JavaScript expert and make an incredible entire career out of that as it's a fairly broad area. On the other hand, if you're an expert in GraphQL queries, while that's great, you probably will need other areas of contributions as well to get there as there's less impact to have in that area. That said, if someone had the "standard" fullstack developer skillset while also being a deep expert in GraphQL queries, that one area of expertise will allow them to have some of that unique impact, while also still being broadly valuable to the team for other work. It's also worth pointing out that this video was literally about the 1% of developer impact, as in 1 out of 100. You can be anywhere on that spectrum of expertise and have a great career, and in many circumstances the jack of all trades might be the most valuable asset to a company. But every single developer I have met that truly had a unique 1% trajectory had a deep level of expertise in at least one thing, and as you mention some had that level of expertise in a few things. That's not to say they weren't great at things outside of that area of expertise, most were, but they just had one or a few things that caused them to stand out from every other great developer.

[@adheemfahad9359]

What if the scope of a subject dies out... isnt it better to learn everything?

[@ConnerArdman]

I'm not sure what you mean by "the scope of a subject dies out," but you can never learn everything (and should never try to).

[@MultiHeywatsup]

anybody wants to volunteer to be my mentor :(

[@gabrielogechukwu50]

I love this video. Mr Conner, But I wished I had seen this video earlier than now... Well it's too late for me to change things...I made my choice, made my bed and now I will have to lie on...

[@ConnerArdman]

Glad you liked the video! Most of these things are all things that can be worked on very late in your career, it's never too late 😀

[@CostaKazistov]

Good video. Terrible background music.

[@ConnerArdman]

Fair enough, thanks for the feedback 🤝 And glad you enjoyed the actual contents of the video!