Tools vs long-term mindset !

Most software engineers are tool-based developers these days. Few are the ones who learn something that can benefit in the long-term (like architecture, leadership skills) etc.

Tools are mostly short-lived, it’s wise to learn something that can last longer and can add a compounding value to ones year-on-year experience. This doesn’t mean that we should stop learning new tools, each have it’s own pros and cons !

Tools

1. They have a short shelf-life, if something new emerges in the market, we have to learn it out of the fear of becoming obsolete !
2. If we stick ourselves only as a tool-based developer, and call us a 10-year-experienced software engineer, than what is the difference between a newly passed-out candidate from a university who has the same tools arsenal that you have (with 2 years of experience), but performs much better than you ? You are still on the same line, no matter how many years of experience you may have.
3. Tools are mostly for execution, I mean, making a business idea come to a reality, But, if you get hired somewhere, you will mostly be judged depending on what tools you have hands-on-experience in and how quickly can you execute based on new technologies, that can benefit the company ROI.
4. To be a great manager / lead, you also need to know how tools work, so as to help your sub-ordinates (future leaders) in a best possible way.
5. As a technical manager, one spends a significant time in hiring new talent, if you don’t know how tools work, it’s difficult to find the right candidate !

Long-term stuff:

1. Skills like architecture, leadership skills, product management, project management etc. (just to name a few), grow year-by-year. Here, in most cases, a 2-years experienced guy cannot be compared to 10-years experienced, more experience you gain in these domains, the more worthy you become.
2. These skills are mostly domain independent and doesn’t get obsolete with time, as tools mostly do.

So, it’s important to focus on both short-term and long-term stuff. Here, I am not mixing software engineering with tools, just comparing tool-based-developers to long-term stuff.

🙂 Opinions are my own, thanks for reading till here ! What are your thoughts ?