How to source and use expert knowledge for your work

At the beginning of my career, I worked in Microsoft's consulting organization. Every week, I would travel to a customer's office somewhere in North America to help them solve their technical problems. Apart from knowing a little javascript and css, I had no real business being there.

I was fresh out of college, and facing the challenge of being Microsoft's Expert on [whatever] in front of the CIO of a Fortune 500 company.

No joke: my first project was rebuilding Dell dotcom from scratch, and I was the lead frontend developer because I was the only one in the room who had heard of jQuery.

So -- I was the expert, and they were paying for my expertise. Which was a problem, really, because I didn't have any.

Nonetheless, any time I had a problem I couldn't solve on my own, I had the entirety of Microsoft's 100k+ employees at my disposal, and I definitely used them. I would send out emails to internal mailing lists, getting advice from brilliant devs in charge of building windows. The responses I got were always helpful, and I learned a ton.

Fast forward 7 years, and I was leaving Microsoft to work as technical director at a code Gymnasium, the best damn online code school for creatives looking to dip their toes in the cool waters of web development.

I would be using completely new tools - going from .net and C# to Django and Python - and from a massive network of people to a crack squad of just 5, where I was the only developer.

Suddenly I was an astronaut in a space station, cut off from the world. I had no one to ask for help, no one to bounce ideas off of, no one to tell me when I was doing something stupid.

I was on my own.

It didn't take long for me to realize that developers have a unique advantage: most of our peers are chronically online. The most knowledgeable people in the world are at your fingertips, as long as you know where to look.

From forums and blog posts to open-source projects, there is no shortage of places to find answers and learn. For me, the key to truly benefiting from this wealth of information came from active participation and engagement with the developer community.

It can do the same for you -- but you're gonna need to put yourself out there.

Here's 3 things you can do right now to get started:

Join a community

Whether it's a local meetup, a Slack channel, or a forum, find a community of people that you can engage with. This is a great way to meet like-minded people, share knowledge, and get advice.

Give helpful feedback

When you're starting out, it can be intimidating to contribute to open-source projects or forums. But remember, you don't have to be an expert to provide valuable feedback. By giving constructive criticism and suggestions, you can help others improve their work and learn in the process.

Keep an eye on trends

The tech industry moves fast, and it's important to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies. This doesn't mean you have to use every new tool or framework that comes out, but having a general understanding of what's happening in the industry can help you make informed decisions about your own work.

The Pavlovian Power of constructive engagement

Someo of the best career advice I ever received is from pal Thomas: give and receive feedback in good faith, and you'll find yourself surrounded by people who are willing to help you grow.

This means being honest, respectful, and open to new ideas. It means being willing to admit when you're wrong, and to learn from your mistakes. It means being generous with your time and knowledge, and being willing to help others when they need it.

The inverse of this is all too common online - I'd wager to say that the vast majority of reddit, twitter, and youtube comments are people who are not engaging in good faith. They're there to tear down, to belittle, to make themselves feel better by making others feel worse.

I'm sure you've seen and felt that, and it sucks -- but it also means that when you come correct, you will really stand out.

It's a simple concept, but it's incredibly powerful. By engaging with your community with constructive, meaningful, and thoughtful feedback, you'll build a powerful reputation for yourself. You'll find yourself learning along the way, too.

Before long, you'll be the one people come to for advice.

Helpful links from around the web

• I published the second in a series of videos on Using Posthog to solve my conversion rate problem - and I'm stoked to say that after seeing the first video, Posthog is sponsoring Tiny Improvements and the next few videos I'm putting together. Give it a watch and let me know what you think!

• Over at APIs You Won't Hate, we published a great little tutorial on pagination basics for APIs. It's a great primer on how to structure your API responses to make them easier to work with.

• My pal Andrew Peacock has been doing a great job of building his product for woodworkers in public. You can follow along on his journey on YouTube. his latest video talks about an important milestone: he finally launched his MVP