Skills for exploration

The mental model for how I approach skills:

• Each skill fits within a system; it supports that direction
• I want interest and curiosity, with enough struggle to grow; boredom and fake discipline do not compound.
• Skills should connect to small problems, simple features, and experiments at a manageable scale, with a feedback loop so learning is not theoretical forever.
• I weigh how likely a skill is to stay useful to society in the coming years, not as a prophecy, but as a rough filter.

See also chapter 2: Introduction, Personal requirements and future assumptions, Macro-areas, and Problems, products, and exclusions.

Skill notes: Ideation and connecting ideas, Creativity, Clear communication, Taste, judgment, and product sense, Marketing, distribution, and sales, Critical thinking and bias awareness, UI/UX and design execution.

Soft skills

Focus for now:

1. Ideation and connecting ideas: see Ideation and connecting ideas for how to generate new ideas, connect the dots, and see what others miss, in the present and the future
2. Creativity: see Creativity
3. Clear communication (written and verbal): see Clear communication
4. Taste, judgment, and product sense: see Taste, judgment, and product sense
5. Marketing and distribution as a solopreneur; sales and customer discovery: see Marketing, distribution, and sales
6. Critical thinking and bias awareness: see Critical thinking and bias awareness
7. UI/UX and design execution: see UI/UX and design execution

Other skills that matter:

• Mental models for complex systems
• Collaboration and cross-functional teamwork
• Negotiation and influence
• Prioritization and the strategic ability to say no
• Storytelling and narrative development
• Meta-learning and self-directed learning
• Emotional regulation and resilience
• Generalism

Hard skills

Hard skills should also feel worth the effort: productive struggle and visible results.

• System design
• Being the kind of software and data engineer who creates real value
• Infrastructure / DevOps basics

Other skills that matter:

• Testing and debugging
• Security fundamentals
• Other hard skills can depend on the domain