First off, I think you can actually learn _better_ from others, the odds you have a world class[1] Senior in your company, or even will work with on in your career, is pretty low.
Here's what I recommend:
1. Build a corpus of materials: Conferences (in person, and you can youtube them), books, courses. Cross product these concepts with tools/techs - DBs, coding tools like IDE and source control, programming languages, programming paradigms, software craftsmanship, network stack / protocols, debuggers, Observability and Ops, Peopleware / wetware.
2. Think of attending conferences as seed materials for future research, write down every term, subject, and technology you're curious about, never heard of, are scared of, think is out of your league/level.
3. Spend an hour a day on weekdays, and 2-4 on a sixth day, sharpening the saw[2] (learning)
4. Close loops on subjects by taking action. Eg: If you finish a chapter on a certain DB, install it, insert some data, learn to bulk insert, try some complex queries. If it's a language try to write a breakable toy[3]. If it's a paradigm, try a code kata and write the same one in multiple paradigms.
5. Remember: you read a text book a month in Uni, try to finish a text book (or equivalent effort) per quarter/half for the remainder of your career.
[1] - These are definitionally top .1 or even 0.01% engineers (amongst the engineering population, not the general population)
Here's what I recommend:
1. Build a corpus of materials: Conferences (in person, and you can youtube them), books, courses. Cross product these concepts with tools/techs - DBs, coding tools like IDE and source control, programming languages, programming paradigms, software craftsmanship, network stack / protocols, debuggers, Observability and Ops, Peopleware / wetware. 2. Think of attending conferences as seed materials for future research, write down every term, subject, and technology you're curious about, never heard of, are scared of, think is out of your league/level. 3. Spend an hour a day on weekdays, and 2-4 on a sixth day, sharpening the saw[2] (learning) 4. Close loops on subjects by taking action. Eg: If you finish a chapter on a certain DB, install it, insert some data, learn to bulk insert, try some complex queries. If it's a language try to write a breakable toy[3]. If it's a paradigm, try a code kata and write the same one in multiple paradigms. 5. Remember: you read a text book a month in Uni, try to finish a text book (or equivalent effort) per quarter/half for the remainder of your career.
[1] - These are definitionally top .1 or even 0.01% engineers (amongst the engineering population, not the general population)
[2] - Sharpen the saw - https://www.franklincovey.com/the-7-habits/habit-7/
[3] - https://ilango.hashnode.dev/learning-by-building-breakable-t...