How can I stay curious while working as a software engineer, picking up new technologies?

Question

I see a lot of engineers get excited by new frameworks, and I can’t emulate that same enthusiasm. There are some exceptions (e.g. when I learned about Storybook.js, I was excited to pick it up as it was applicable to my work), but for the most part, I'm just not as excited as other software engineers about picking up the latest and greatest tech. If I’m not going to get my hands dirty with a new framework or use it at work, I just don’t really care for it. What can I do to be better about this kind of learning?

Alex Chiou · Accepted Answer

Short answer: If you don't want to do it, just don't do it. Being obsessed with the newest technology is a common failure mode among junior engineers and weaker tech companies in general. It's almost always a very inefficient usage of time. We're at a point where the existing options are already pretty good. It takes a lot for a new framework to be hands-down better than the current thing it's trying to replace. People underestimate how powerful it is to sharpen the existing tools you have vs. picking up the new shiny ones constantly. An example: I've purposefully stuck with the original old-school way of building Android apps with the MVC pattern. Taro is built this way, and so is Instagram!

How can I stay curious while working as a software engineer, picking up new technologies?

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