Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
This thread is slowly filling up with stories of enthusiastic workaholic parents who are disciplined and fit enough to take every single 15 minute break to sit down and get some code out.<p>If you&#x27;re able to code up a blog engine with one hand while holding your baby in the other, I envy you. I wish I could muster up the energy and discipline to do something like that. But to other readers: for many people this is not the way. I hope that by writing this comment I can provide some counterpressure to this usual HN moral of &quot;work harderer, even hardererer, all the time, at the cost of everything&quot; that these proud over-achieving-parent comments breathe.<p>It&#x27;s perfectly OK not to code outside work time. It&#x27;s perfectly fine to, once you&#x27;re <i>finally</i> done with the intensive and tiring quality time you spent with your kids, to sit down, have a cup of tea, watch some Netflix and go to bed early.<p>This means that you <i>must</i> ensure you have a challenging job. Not learning on the job is not an option - you&#x27;ll be out of work in 10 years, maybe sooner. So be critical, request transfers, and if your financial situation allows, care less about salary than about how much you can learn on the job. The downside of our market is that knowledge gets outdated fast. But the upside is that we programmers are in great demand. We get to make demands - not many people have that priviledge. Use it. You can&#x27;t afford not to.<p>I&#x27;d say that this is good advice for most people - as you might guess I&#x27;m a violent opponent to this whole &quot;you&#x27;re not worth your salt as a coder if you don&#x27;t do hobby-OSS every evening&quot; meme. But it becomes a <i>need</i> if you can&#x27;t or won&#x27;t be Superdad or Supermom every day.<p>Think about yourself, think about your future. Consider letting off-time be off-time and getting yourself a better job :)