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Lab651 Process

Resources

Resources for advancement

Section titled “Resources for advancement”

There are many resources available to help you with the advancement of your engineering grade and your career, overall.  Also, it is possible to follow more than one of these paths at a time.

Self Study

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Picking up a book or following a free tutorial on a new language, technique or concept is one of the most common ways to learn.

Shadowing/Mentorship

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Shadowing/Mentorship is a bit like Self Study, but with others involved that have a higher level of expertise.  There are several ways to approach this

    • Paired programming - This is an excellent way to get direct tutelage on languages, best-practices patterns and techniques.  This is done by working directly with another engineer on an actual implementation.
    • Test writing - A great way to learn how a piece of code works is to write a test for it.  You would work with another engineer who will review your tests.
    • Code reviews - Doing code reviews of code submitted to the repository is a great way to learn different coding practices.  However, this is passive (versus active) and not always the best way to learn.

Online Classes

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There are many online resources that will help you learn new skills and hone current skills.  Here is a list of some of the more common paid services (and some of these may have some free content).

  • Udemy
  • Pluralsight
  • LinkedIn Learning
  • Codecademy
  • Datacamp
  • Udacity
  • Microsoft

If you are interested in signing up for a class, talk to your manager about the topic(s) you wish to study and the cost of the subscription.  If it is approved, you will pay for the class yourself and submit an expense report.  You will be reimbursed for the class on the next expense cycle.  For any paid resource, a demonstration of what has been learned will be required.  This can be in the form of client work in a specific technology or a quarterly presentation.

What is required at the end?

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In order for any of these to be used for consideration of advancement, you will present your topic to your manager and talk through what you have learned.  You will be asked about the technology by others that have experience the area you chose.  If there is no formal certificate, you may be asked to implement what you learned in a real-world way.

Other ways to learn

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Conferences

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Lab651 will pay for you to attend conferences that are germane to your existing or desired skillset.  If you would like to attend a conference talk to your manager about the conference that you wish to study and the cost of it.  If it is approved, you will pay for the conference yourself and submit an expense report.  You will be reimbursed for the on the next expense cycle.

Lunch and Learns

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Lab651 has multiple lunch and learns every quarter.  A great way to learn to to pick a topic and create a presentation that you will present to everyone at Lab651.

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