RapDev Career Growth & Development

Give us a snapshot of what you do to stay on top of your engineering knowledge and skills. 

The core way I stay on top of my engineering knowledge and skills is by constantly trying to put myself in a position to learn something new, and I find it easiest to learn when I have a use case for whatever tool or feature that piques my interest. Whether it’s labbing up scenarios for my customers, trying a new tool or feature I read about, or stepping in to help my colleagues even if I don’t know the answer immediately, I find it really important to actively seek learning opportunities whenever possible. It can be really easy to fall into the trap of getting comfortable and sticking to what you know, and I firmly believe that exceptional engineers have an almost uncontrollable curiosity about them. 

I try my hardest to keep track of new trends and take time out of my week to build new skills. Technology is moving at an unfathomable pace, and I feel that if I don’t take at least a couple hours a week to tinker or read about some of the latest innovations happening in my specific area of engineering, the easier it becomes to get overwhelmed and inevitably fall behind.

What are your go-to resources for keeping your engineering skills sharp?

Other than scouring new release feeds or periodically reading change logs or release notes for the technologies I use in my day-to-day, the primary resource I use to keep my skills sharp is through community interaction. Whether I have known the person for a decade or never met them in my life, I find that just general conversation with other engineers is a great way to keep skills sharp. 

Sometimes it’s a complete stranger looking for a little help with a minor issue they have, to which I might walk myself through the scenario and tinker until I can at least provide some sort of input. Other times it’s getting inspiration from my current or former colleagues by just catching up and hearing about what they are spending their time on or learning about. Even if I don’t become an expert in the topics in either scenario, I find that having even general knowledge about different tools, languages, etc. in the industry can be really beneficial in becoming a more well-rounded engineer.

What does the learning culture look like at your company or on your engineering team?

The learning culture at RapDev is amazing, and I haven’t seen anything like it. The flexibility and empowerment we get to be creative and produce solid engineering is second to none. I have never been told that I couldn’t try something new or in a different way, and I firmly believe it’s because the organization values new ideas. Even if it doesn’t work out the way we’d hope, I know RapDev believes that testing different methods or technologies in order to solve problems helps contribute to an overall more well-rounded engineering team. We celebrate the wins and learn from the losses, and we are invited to share the results with our fellow engineers to help them learn as well. 

When we build something new or cool for one of our customers, we have a dedicated slot every week to share it with the entire company. I think even though these sessions aren’t necessarily directly relevant to the day-to-day of everyone at the company, encouraging knowledge sharing just further reinforces a strong learning culture within the engineering organization.