Can technical depth exist outside an office?

I had a virtual coffee with someone from one of my workshops last week. We chatted about the many different ways to build a technical career: public versus private, big versus small. All with their own tradeoffs.

Underneath our conversation was a question:

Is it possible to build a career with sufficient technical depth without spending your days on full-time work for one employer?

I was relieved to have this conversation with someone else, because that’s roughly the thesis behind From Scratch Code.

As much as I joked to my colleagues at my last 9-5 that I was retiring, I left to write more code, not less, and help more people, not fewer.

And while I’ve worked with engineers in all sorts of job and school arrangements, a common thread among those who stick around is this: they are seeking more technical depth than their environment currently gives them.

Everyone says to look for a work environment that suits you. But when the options are “uses Oracle or uses AWS” or “puts walls around each desk or doesn’t,” I wonder if we’ve narrowed the scope on what engineering looks like a tad too far.

Next, I will present my 14-Step Program for building exactly this career.

Kidding! I’m still figuring it out.

Just sharing this topic in case others are feeling the same.

A few other updates:

• I’m mere weeks away from spending longer working on Memphis than I ever stayed at a full-time job. So that’s something.
• I soft-launched a browser-based Memphis REPL. Feel free to poke at it and let me know what bugs you find. There are plenty.

-Tyler