Throughout my career, I’ve found that I’d figure things out, and several months or years later, I’d bump into someone else that was trying to do something similar, and I’d think or say: “Yea, I can’t remember the specifics, but I definitely remember dealing with that.” That was the original motivation for starting my blog: to build a personal catalog of things I’ve learned that I could refer back to should the things become relevant again.
It started as a bit of a hobby but eventually became part of my weekly professional life. I’d research my assignments, and I’d track the journey. Once I finished, I’d organize my list of steps into an article and publish it. The more I wrote, the more views my blog would see, and it became exciting to watch traffic grow and track statistics.
I was reading an article about the Feynman Technique and realized that this is similar to how I approached writing.
- Start with a concept: a problem I’m trying to solve for an assignment
- Teach it to a toddler: figure it out/make it work
- Identify gaps: are there things I don’t understand about the solution or aspects that I am not able to articulate?
- Review & simplify: write an article that’s concise and easy to understand
I was having a lot of fun transforming my work into articles and watching daily traffic grow, but what I didn’t realize was that this activity was actually giving me tremendous professional growth in a number of ways.
Writing Skills
Writing is an extremely underrated skill for software developers. Between email, team chats, direct messages, and documentation, I’d venture to say I spend more time writing than I do coding. In the digital age, I’m often represented by the things I type much more than the things I say or do.
The more important part of writing is how it affects people around you, though. Good writing is essential to sharing and communicating your ideas. It allows you to explain concepts to your bosses, teammates, and clients/customers. Maybe it allows a colleague to understand your perspective and snap to your approach, or maybe it helps them explain back to you where you’re wrong. It might enable you to implement a cool new feature or prevent the team from wasting time on something that’s not needed. Good things happen when you articulate thoughts effectively.
Technical Expertise
This is the big advantage that I didn’t realize until more recently. I thought I was learning things and just documenting them by writing articles, but the exercise of sharing it with the world forced me to take extra steps. I needed to fact-check claims I was making and double-check assertions. This correlates to the “identify gaps” step of the Feynman Technique. The act of publishing things I thought I knew forced me to make sure I actually knew them as best I could.
Similarly, knowing things a little better and having “practiced” explaining it makes you an excellent resource for your team. You know more things, you know them well, and you know how to explain them.
Shareable/Referenceable Content
My original goal! It’s awesome when somebody needs something, and you can just give them a link instead of explaining. It’s also fun when a co-worker’s researching something and they find you, which has happened a couple times. Sometimes you even turn up as an answer to your own questions!
Personal Brand
This is particularly good advice for people early in their career. If I get a resume from somebody with a blog that’s been active for several years, I get excited. This is someone that values learning and communication. This is someone that wants to share ideas and help others. This is someone that I think can provide a lift to the team.
Of course, if I look at the blog and it’s poorly written or has a lot of mistakes, it might work against you. This is where it’s important to follow the process. Start with your idea. Get it written. Fill the gaps. Simplify. With diligence and time, you’ll have lots of great content that represents you well.
adamprescott.net 