Are You the Best Ruby on Rails Developer You Know?

Photo by Naval History & Heritage Command.

Over the last few years, we have placed developers with a fairly wide range of skill sets.  Some are more junior developers with a year or two of experience.  Others are top-level guys/gals who have authored Rails books that are probably sitting on your bookshelf. 

If you are one of the top Rails developers at your company or in your circle of Rails pals, this post is for you. 

Having amazing Rails skills yourself is great and will make you a valuable asset at any company you choose to join.  But there is something that will make you infinitely more valuable: the ability to mentor other Rails developers.  If you are a good mentor, you have the ability to raise the level of work on your entire team, providing much greater value to your team, company, and the product or service you are building as a whole.  

It’s kind of like the Chinese proverb: “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish; you have fed him for a lifetime.”  The ability to teach others fuels unprecedented growth and potential for your team.
 
If you have great Rails skills yourself, you are good to go.  But what will take you to that next level?  The ability to mentor those around you.  As an individual, even the best Rails developer has his/her limit in terms of the number of lines of code one can write and the number of bugs one can fix in a given time period.  But imagine if you could clone yourself (or the best developer at your company) through mentorship.  How much stronger would your team be?  How much better would your product be?