Hey hey hey,

Welcome back to another issue of the Top 3 in Tech newsletter. If you're new here (hello 👋) I send out this bi-weekly email with development advice and updates from the tech world that I think you'll really enjoy.

So without further ado, let's get right into it:

1. Junior developer advice

Almost 2 years ago I asked a simple question on Twitter:

Mads Brodt @madsbrodt What's one piece of advice you would give to junior developers just beginning on their coding journey? Mine would be to focus on building real, practical projects - as that's where the actual learning happens 🔥 July 4th 2021 13 Retweets 164 Likes

​This week I decided to look back at the advice - and all of it still holds up very well today. I definitely recommend reading through the entire thread, as there's lots of great advice for both new and experienced developers. But of course I'll also curate some of my personal favourites here:

1. Break problems down. As we discussed in the last issue, taking a large task and breaking it into smaller chunks that are easier to approach is a fundamental skill in development. Try to solve each subtask in isolation using pseudo-code, pen/paper etc. until you combine it all to have a functional solution.

2. Practical application is key. It's simply not enough to read articles or watch tutorials to learn coding. You have to get your hands dirty and actually experiment with languages, frameworks and tools yourself to really internalize the learnings.

3. Small improvements make a big difference. You won't become a coding expert in a week, a month or even a year. But if you continuously put in a bit of effort every day, all those small improvements will add up and compound.

4. Learn how to gather information. Documentations, Google and now ChatGPT are all amazing tools to gather information. But you have to know how to use them well. Build the habit of understanding *exactly* what you are trying to solve, and you'll have a much easier time searching for answers online.

Again, these are just a few excerpts from the thread - but I highly recommend giving it a read in full:

​Read the full thread here.​

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2. Getting a tech job in 2023

The tech world has changed quite a bit in the last few years. Especially with the looming recession and uncertainty in the market, landing a tech job in 2023 is not as straight-forward as even a year ago.

One of my favourite Youtubers, Theo, has a really great video on this exact topic, especially if you're looking to land that first coding job. I think the first step is to recognize that the landscape has changed, which you can either ignore and complain about (bad) or accept and try to adjust your own strategy (good).

Check out the video to learn more about the reality of the tech job market in 2023 and what you can do to greatly improve your chances of getting hired as a developer:

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3. How Discord stores trillions of messages

The final pick for this week is a really cool and insightful blog post from the Discord team. In case you don't know, Discord is a platform for building communities and communicating online. It started out mostly intended for gamers, but has since expanded to become the go-to solution for any online community.

In this blog post they break down their journey from storing billions of messages (which is already a lot) to now storing trillions of messages in an efficient and performant manner.

I'm not a big database guy myself, but I can appreciate the energy and effort that goes into designing and building a system like this to support hundreds of millions of users interacting with the platform every single day:

​Read the full blog post here​

​That's it for now! See you in 2 weeks ✌️

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— Mads Brodt