14 Habits of highly productive developers

1.1 Learn the foundation

Understand the foundation of the technology you are using. It’s important to understand how things work under the hood.

This is really important, and it is also recommeded by Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, and many other successful people.

Why it’s important?

• It helps us to understand the technology better, we can use it more effectively.
• It helps us to be more creative. When we understand how things work, we can come up with new ideas, and we can create new things.

How can you apply this habit?

• Read the documentation of the technology you are using.
• Read the source code of the technology you are using. Try to implement it yourself
• Always ask the “Why” questions?

1.2 Learn by teaching

The best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. When we teach something, we need to understand it deeply, and we can remember it better.

I found this habit really interesting. I’ve tried it, and it works. It really makes me understand the technology deeply and help my career a lot.

How can you apply this habit?

• Write blogs, make videos, or give talks about the technology you are using.
• Help others in the community, answer questions on Stackoverflow, Reddit, or other forums.

And it not only help you to understand the technology better, but it also helps you to build your personal brand, and it can help you to get a better job.

2.1 Helping your future self

Always write clean code, write comments, and write tests. It will help you in the future.

This is really important, and I believe we all agree with that, and that’s the things we should always keep in mind when writing code. And do you know what is the side effect of writing clean code? It’s you will make others have a good impression of you. And believe me, that’s really important for your career.

2.2 9-5 is not enough

Always learn new things, always improve yourself. The world is changing, and we need to change with it.

We spent 8 hours a day working. But in that day to day job, we are strict to the technology we are using, the problems we are solving. We can’t experience new things.
We need to learn new things, new technologies, new ways of solving problems. And this habit is really important.

How can you apply this habit?

• Read books, watch videos, listen to podcasts.
• Try new technologies, new ways of solving problems.
• Working on side projects/open-source projects

3.1 Understand the business

Understand the business you are working on. It will help you to make better decisions, avoid XY problem, and it will help you to create better products.

I’ve seen a lot of engineers that are still able to finish the work without understanding the business.
So why do we need to understand the business?

• It helps us to make better decisions. When we understand the business, we can understand the requirements better, and we can come up with better solutions.
• It helps us to create better products. When we understand the business, we can come up with new ideas, innovations that helps the business grow.
  • For example, in OKX, we understand the business and what user needs, so we come up with the idea of “OKX App Clip” to help user experience the app without installing it. It helps us to gain more users for the company.

3.2. Don’t change job too much often

In this tech industry, the more you change jobs, the more you get paid. But is it really good for your career?
The author mentioned an interesting point that, you need to work in a company long enough to understand the business, the technology, and the people. You gain the trust from your work, and that’s when you can deal with the big problems and make big impacts.

4.1. Active listening

Always listen to your team members, understand their problems, and help them.

Communication is really important in a team. Conversations are typically two-way streets, but we often forget that. We often talk more than we listen. Active listening is interesting. We often listen to answer, not to understand. But when we listen to understand, we can understand the problems better, and we can come up with better solutions.

4.2 Don’t underestimate

As engineers, we need to estimate the time to finish the work. But we often underestimate the time. We often think that we can finish the work faster than we can.

Why?

• We want to impress others
• We forget that’s not all about coding: Writing tests, writing documentation, code review, … and not to mentioned a lot of meetings.
• We don’t focus on one thing: We often work on multiple tasks at the same time
• We think everyone is the same: Sometime when we estimate the time, we think that everyone is as good as us, but that’s not true. We should let people estimate themself.
• Requirements change: We often think that the requirements are fixed, but in reality, they are not. They often change.

So what can we do?

• Separating large tasks into smaller tasks improve the accuracy of the estimation.
• Document and communicate the assumptions embeeded in your estimate
• Track your estimates and compare them with the actual time. It helps you to improve your estimation skill.