Advancing from development to innovative development. Where to go when you're at the end?

spending my time

I think the key is here. It frequently happens that people fall into a situation where they feel they don't have much to learn, mostly because there's not much field for manoeuvring at work.

But this is only natural. At work, you're not spending your time, you're selling your time for a living. I mean, at work, unless you work for yourself, you work for the money. And you do what the money wants to be done. And generally, money doesn't want "experimental development" but "sell-able products".

So the solution is clear. You have two ways you can go:

  • focus on your time.
  • change jobs.

Focusing on your time, means that, on your time you can do whatever you feel like. In fact, I would recommend doing things wildly different from what you do at work. Imagine working all day on a classifieds site in Java and going home and doing your personal project... a classifieds site in Ruby. Yippee, this is so much fun! I guess not. Sure, learning a language is interesting. But you need something that goes a little beyond that. As /u/DolphonCockLover says, don't focus so much on the tools, but on what you do with them.

Maybe pick up something artistic, or totally useless but fun. A game, maybe, if that interests you. Or pick something from your daily life you like a lot and try to find something related to that. Or you may know something you can't do at work but really feel it should be done. Something you want to do, you would have fun doing or with a goal you want achieved.

On the other hand, you might really try to do this on the job. This is not that easy, but there are ways. Go set up a start-up or go find one that appeals to you and that needs someone. Go freelance, and only pick projects which interest you. All of those imply a risk, the risk of putting your own money on the table.

Or maybe you're lucky enough to find a more established company willing to pay you for in part learning new stuff. But it's not usual to be paid for just learning or experimenting or for doing what you want. Generally it's a compromise and you can learn and experiment on things that, at the very least, make sense for the company. More frequently, you can learn or experiment about things that the company sees a business profit in.

In any case, a change in technology alone won't solve your problem. Go learn C, start to work as a C developer, wait for a year. You will be in exactly the same situation you're right now. "Hello /r/c, I know C, but I'm bored".

/r/javascript Thread