6 reasons to share your knowledge if you are an IT professional

1. Go beyond the usual tasks

Sooner or later, any specialist is faced with a routine. Of course, something new often appears in IT, but the essence of the work of a programmer remains the same - to write code. Helping newbies is a great way to switch to something completely new. After all, the mentor is not only responsible for his part of the code, but also motivates students to learn, looks for answers to questions, and sometimes analyzes cases that he has not encountered in practice.

Another option is to do code reviews. Checking the work will teach you to look at the task through the eyes of the performer, notice errors and understand someone else's solution logic. This approach is useful not only for students, but also for the reviewer himself. It helps to revise the strategies developed over the years and apply non-standard approaches in their own projects.

2. Expand your social circle

Sometimes beginners are able to look at the problem from an unexpected angle and offer a non-standard solution. Whether you're an occasional hirer or dreaming of your own startup, mentoring can help you find and grow talented developers.

Often people come to IT not from school, but having already made a career in another field. Among the students you can meet marketers, teachers, engineers, salesmen. At the same time, companies create digital products for medicine, ecology, e-commerce, and education. Therefore, acquaintance with professionals from these areas can lay the foundation for interesting commercial projects.

3. Add in income

Even if you are satisfied with the salary at the main job, the money is not superfluous. As a rule, speeches at conferences, training for newcomers or code reviews are paid. The remuneration depends on the level of workload - with part-time employment, you can independently determine how much educational materials you are ready to take and how much you want to earn. What is especially nice is that many lectures and webinars are held remotely, so you don’t have to carve out free hours for the road. In addition, in difficult times, additional employment can become the main source of income.

4. Create a personal brand

For a professional who wants to grow in income and be known among colleagues, a personal brand is important. And it is quite difficult to enter the public field if all the work is concentrated only in lines of code. Mentoring makes it possible to participate in conferences, speak at webinars and meetups, comment on publications in the media and the media as an expert. When you understand the needs of a wide audience, you can start a blog to discuss industry issues, share useful tips and practical cases.

By developing a personal brand, a programmer can start releasing his own information products and work as a consultant. And over time, even completely go into science or found a startup.

5. Update your knowledge

Even professionals sometimes forget basic things when they are not used for a long time. Developers who are engaged in the same type of projects especially suffer from this. For example, if a specialist has been working on delivery services for several years, it will not be easy for him to switch to creating an online cinema or a health application.

The mentor grows with the students. He needs to master technology and always be aware of industry trends. By explaining tasks to beginners, you can deepen and structure your own knowledge.

6. Pump up charisma

Requirements for a specialist in companies are not limited to knowledge of technology. The ability to communicate in an environmentally friendly manner with colleagues, proactivity, and the ability to find a way out of difficult situations are also important. Knowledge sharing helps to test your own leadership skills and understand whether you want to grow to a team lead or you are more comfortable being a narrow specialist. When you're breaking down a beginner's code, it's important to find the right words that won't be taken as criticism and will inspire you to learn. The ability to correctly suggest edits will come in handy when working on any project.