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Learning Resources by Level

Online courses, communities, podcasts, and references for each stage.

Foundation (Years 0–5)

Online Courses

Websites & References

Communities

  • Local meetups (your city)
  • Reddit: r/learnprogramming, language subreddits
  • Discord servers: Language-specific communities
  • Dev.to — Beginner articles and discussions

Podcasts

Growth (Years 5–10)

Courses

Books & Blogs

Communities

Podcasts

Leadership (Years 8–15)

Executive Education

Resources

Communities

  • Chief (invite-only) — Community of women leaders
  • The Helm — Executive network
  • Industry associations — Your field's professional organizations
  • Peer advisory boards — Peer CEOs/CTOs who advise each other

Podcasts

Continuous Learning (All Levels)

Daily/Weekly Reads

  • Hacker News frontpage — 15 min/day, know what's happening
  • Newsletter: Subscribe to 2–3 that match your interests
  • Pointer.io — Distributed systems
  • Console — Tool recommendations
  • TLDR — Daily tech news
  • Twitter/X: Follow key voices in your area (but be careful of doomscrolling)

Conferences & Talks

  • Major conferences (once/year)
  • FAANG: I/O, WWDC, etc.
  • General: QCon, O'Reilly Velocity, dbt Coalesce
  • Your domain: specific conferences
  • YouTube channels: Conference talks are often posted free
  • Papers We Love — Academic papers made accessible

Avoid Time Wasters

  • ❌ Tutorial hell — Watching endless YouTube tutorials
  • ❌ YouTube algorithm — Algorithms pull you away from learning
  • ❌ Twitter angst — Doomscrolling about tech drama
  • ❌ Low-quality courses — $10 course from random instructor
  • Instead: Choose 2–3 high-quality sources and go deep

By Domain (Specialization)

If You're Going Backend

If You're Going Infrastructure / DevOps

If You're Going Data / ML

If You're Going Management

Finding Your People

Most important learning: talking to others in your field

How to Find People

  • Twitter: Find people in your niche, follow, engage respectfully
  • Meetups: Local engineering communities
  • Conferences: Go to talks, attend speaker dinners
  • Online communities: Reddit, Hacker News, Discord
  • Mentors: Find senior people in your field, ask for 30-min chats
  • Peer groups: Form study group or discuss group (very motivating)

What to Ask Them

  • "How did you learn X?"
  • "What books changed your thinking?"
  • "What was the biggest inflection point in your career?"
  • "What do you wish you'd known at my level?"
How many courses should I take?

Quality > quantity. Do 1–2 excellent courses per year, not 10 mediocre ones.

Should I get certifications (AWS, Kubernetes, etc.)?

Not necessary for most roles. Experience > certificates. But if your company values them, do it.

Is it worth paying for courses when so much is free?

Paid courses are often higher quality and have structure. $200 for a great course is ROI positive.

Learning never stops. Stay curious, but not scattered.