How The Best Software Engineers Learn A Tech Stack - The Lego Model

- "The Lego Model" is a way to view the world and understand your learning journey as a software engineer.
  - Technical components (e.g. rendering a list of items) are the individual legos
  - Complete products (e.g. a food delivery app) are the full lego creations
- There are 3 axes to evaluate your legos:
  - **Quantity:** How many you have
  - **Quality:** How good and sturdy your legos are
  - **Commonality:** How "in demand" your legos are (i.e. how many creations they can fit into)
- Most earlier-in-career engineers understand the 1st axis of quantity and incorrectly spend a lot of time learning different tech stacks and frameworks.
- Those same engineers often don't even realize the 2nd and 3rd axes exist:
  - When they learn a component, they will build it out with very low quality.
  - They will learn "flashier" components that aren't even used by most products/companies.

For examples on how to excel at the 2nd and 3rd axes, check out the related resources below!

Related resources:
- [[Masterclass] How To Learn Quickly In Tech](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/u9ldIvrTvV1wfWExccDR/masterclass-how-to-learn-quickly-in-tech/) - The full video this clip came from
- [This Is How Software Engineers Should Initially Learn](https://link.jointaro.com/iVBpCaB6pAHivhdi6)
- [Building Software For Optimal Learning Example - Login Flow](https://link.jointaro.com/oEkTB3pskKH6JHCX6)

"The Lego Model" is a way to view the world and understand your learning journey as a software engineer

This collection represents the best of what Taro has to offer, personally curated by Alex and Rahul. If you're short on time, go through the content here.

Tech has so much to learn, making learning how to learn one of the most important things for any software engineer to do. Figure out what you need to do to pick up new skills quickly and properly.

[Masterclass] How To Learn Quickly In Tech

Related resources:
- ["How do I identify the core things to learn when picking up a new tech stack?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/0VfjTWl2gxCKS0PRHpRT/how-do-i-identify-the-core-things-to-learn-when-picking-up-a-new-tech-stack/)
- ["What’s the most effective way to switch domains in tech?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/eFr9vsyTSiYLCbtsj7RR/whats-the-most-effective-way-to-switch-domains-in-tech/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1C0RYphpovijVp8s3JVjG9iYFT6hgPJNHabIeP8WF7V4/edit?usp=sharing)