Here's a response to a former colleague who’s earlier in their career than I am and asked me for advice about being a dev in 2025. It got me thinking, especially in the age of AI. It's really raw, not SEO-friendly at all, but if someone stumbles across this, hopefully it helps.

I took some time to give you something honest and useful, no bullshit. I believe that if you seriously apply these things, you’ll grow fast and strong as a dev:

  • Side projects: This is key. What you build outside of work reflects your real motivation. It’s where you can experiment, mess up, learn, and grow freely.
  • Focus on real user use cases. In an AI-driven world, understanding real user needs is what makes you valuable. That’s the human side machines can’t replace.
  • Learn design patterns. They help you write better code and collaborate more effectively. Since you're focused on web dev, a great place to start: https://www.patterns.dev/
  • Focus on problem-solving skills. That’s more important than just knowing syntax. Read about mental models and cognitive biases. These will level up how you think and debug: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_solving https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias

​ This is a masterpiece: https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1cc405d

  • Don’t overuse AI. Don’t rely on it to do what you don’t understand. Use it to go faster at what you already can do, use it to learn. It’s a tool, not a shortcut for learning.
  • Know yourself technically. Map out what you already know, and what you need to learn. This helps build direction and clarity. A resource I wish had existed when I started: https://roadmap.sh/
  • Learn the fundamentals. Really understand how the web works. Learn clean code principles. Stick to basics like KISS, DRY, YAGNI.
  • Code is not the most important thing. What matters is the outcome. Testing is a big thing, but also learn to prioritize impact over perfection. Apply Occam’s Razor and the Pareto principle: go simple, go effective. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
  • Invest in good communication. It’s the one skill that will still matter when LLMs write most of the code. The people who communicate best with others (and with LLMs) will stand out.
  • Do code reviews. Read other people’s code. If you can, contribute to open source. Not doing more open source earlier in my career is something I regret.
  • Stay curious. Always keep learning. Tech evolves fast, if you love what you do and have « deliberate practice » https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/deliberate-practice#:~:text=Deliberate%20practice%20is%20defined%20as,often%20performed%20without%20immediate%20reward -> You will stand out
  • Be coachable. When you get constructive feedback, use it. Don’t defend your ego. Progress depends on your ability to take it in and grow from it. Im saying that because when I started I was not always listening to feedbacks (maybe due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect )
  • Stay humble. You’ll never know everything. The more years I spend in this field, the more I realize how little I know.
  • This is everything I wish someone had clearly told me when I was starting out. If anything here resonates, feel free to reach out ! And feel free to share these bullet points to anyone as well :)

Take care ! Jules