I have been talking to a bunch of software engineers over the last few weeks about the importance of meetups and why software engineers should engage in these. Here are my top 3 reasons:

1.Network

2.Network

3.Network

Seriously, the one massive aspect of meetups is the ability to develop and grow your network. Of course there are opportunities to present (and grow these skills) and share and collaborate in all sorts of ways. But what stands out is your ability to connect and grow relationships with a community and for me I have been able to both connect, re-connect and grow a number relationships via Meetups and it has definitely made a difference in the last ten years of my career in software engineering. Through my network I have established a significant group of people who help me in all sorts of ways (I think I’ll do a specific blog on this soon) and have allowed me to grow throughout my career.

There are all types of meetups/user groups/clubs that exist and it’s pretty easy to find one that is related to software engineering, so take the opportunity to check one of these cool organisations out and you might find like me you are able to grow your professional network.

And while I am on subject – here is a plug to an awesome meetup in the city I live : https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Junior-Developers-Canberra/

If you are a junior dev in or around the Canberra area would highly recommend joining.

Ok so this is slightly late but a heads up that the AWS community days are on now:

https://aws-communityday-specialedition.splashthat.com/?li_fat_id=aec3094f-a1db-45dc-b48a-92029b12b1e2

So it’s been a busy few months but as always nice to be back blogging again, lots of things backed up to post

Been a while 😉 Awesome article from Hanselman

https://www.hanselman.com/blog/11EssentialCharacteristicsForBeingAGoodTechnicalAdvocateOrInterviewer.aspx

Maintaining the PDP

The professional development plan (PDP) is great to have but you can’t just file it away some where. It’s a living document and needs to be maintained and tweaked . It’s great if you can discuss it with your manager in a regular 1:1 catch up.

To me the key with looking After your PDP is to make sure you are regularly ticking off items in the 30 day list. It’s great that you accomplish the medium and Longer term items but to me the importance is the focus on the next 30 days.

Ok that’s it, hope you’ve enjoyed these posts on PDP’s.

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/news/game-developers-win-200000-in-prizes