Staying relevant in tech | Web Developer career growth | Lifelong learning for developers
In this blog post, Notitia’s Senior Web Developer Brett Earle reflects on what it takes to stay relevant in tech. From keeping a broad awareness of trends, going deep on 1–2 areas, practising daily, through to building leadership skills — Brett outlines a rhythm that keeps him sharp, adaptable, and always learning.
Tech moves fast. New tools, new frameworks, new ways of solving problems. If you’re not deliberate, it’s easy to feel like you’re falling behind.
Staying relevant in tech, isn’t about learning everything. It’s about setting up habits that keep you sharp — ones that give you enough insight or breadth to see what’s coming your way, alongside the depth to use the tools and apply what matters.
Here’s how I approach learning and career growth in a way that fits into the day-to-day, supports longer-term goals, and helps me keep evolving with the industry.
Keep your awareness broad
I like to keep my awareness broad with high-level conversations around tech. Whether through industry media, podcasts, articles or YouTube — the format doesn’t matter as much as staying in touch with what’s happening.
The breadth of the industry is large, so having a touch point in areas of interest is good. The insights you can learn when you know enough to ask slightly deeper questions is worth its weight in gold.
This kind of declarative knowledge is useful when you’re trying to make decisions, collaborate across teams, or simply spot patterns early. It means you can join the dots when things change, and it gives you context when you need to pivot or pick up something new.
You don’t need to understand every detail — but having a surface-level map helps you know where to look when it counts.
Go deep on 1–2 things at a time
On the other side of breadth is depth. I pick one to two topics every cycle to go deep on.
The first is generally web tech for me, and whatever micro part of that I really want to get into.
Then the second is an ancillary topic. At the moment, my two are AI infrastructure and application — and I mean application that is deeper than just integrating with ChatGPT’s API.
Focused learning helps me to build real fluency. Instead of jumping between a dozen topics, I commit to one or two and give them proper time. That might be exploring new architecture patterns, understanding deployment strategies, or learning how a tool behaves at scale.
By going deep, you start to build intuition. You get to the point where you’re not just using something — you’re understanding *why* it works the way it does.
Practice beats theory
To do this, I dedicate a portion of my day, every day, to improving my procedural knowledge — which is the “how to implement” type of knowledge.
Reading is helpful, but I’ve found you don’t really learn something until you try it. Whether it’s writing scripts, debugging a workflow, or just building something small, that daily practice cements the learning.
It’s not about working longer hours or grinding — it’s more about steady, consistent reps. It could be 20 minutes or two hours, depending on the day. But making time for hands-on work helps bridge the gap between awareness and action.
That implementation skill is what actually drives developer career growth — not just knowing *what* a tool does, but knowing how to apply it, where the edge cases are, and what trade-offs to look out for.
Work on the way that you lead
As you grow in your career, it’s not enough to just keep up with the latest tools and technologies. You also need to develop skills in leadership.
Technical skills will always be important. But relevance isn’t just about code. It’s also about how you communicate, how you make decisions, and how you support your team.
My second focus at the moment is around leading an engineering team effectively — what it looks like to help others grow, to keep deliverables on track, and the processes that surround that.
That might mean mentoring a junior developer, helping shape scope during planning, or creating a better review process. Sometimes it’s just about asking the right questions.
If you want to stay relevant in tech over the long term, you’ve got to learn how to scale your impact. That often means shifting from being the one doing all the work to being the one creating the conditions for good work to happen.
Build your own rhythm
Remember that it isn’t possible to keep up with every new thing in tech.
It’s better to focus on what you can achieve which, for me, is having a rhythm that makes space for learning.
This is what that looks like in practice:
Broad awareness: high-level media and conversations to stay across trends
Focused depth: 1–2 technical or leadership topics per quarter
Daily practice: time set aside to build procedural knowledge
Review cycles: reflect every few months on what’s working and what’s next
I’ve found that this structure keeps things manageable. It gives me room to experiment without chasing everything. And more importantly, it helps make sure I’m always learning in ways that align with what my team and projects actually need.
Lessons that stick
What I’ve found in my approach to learning is that most of the growth happens in the doing. It’s not flashy. It’s not always visible. But it compounds.
Having a routine that makes space for depth, practice, and reflection is a big part of what’s kept me adaptable over the years. It’s helped me move between different types of work, scale into leadership, and stay curious along the way.
That’s the core of lifelong learning for developers — not just adding more to your plate, but building a system that helps you *learn better*.
We’re always “still learning”
Staying relevant in tech isn’t about jumping on every new trend. It’s about knowing where you’re heading, staying aware of what’s changing, and building the skills to apply what matters.
It means keeping my awareness broad, going deep where it counts, practising daily, and investing in leadership — all tied together in a rhythm that fits with my work and energy.
If you’re intentional about it, you’ll not only stay relevant — you’ll grow in the ways that matter most to you and your team.
Interested in tech leadership or building out your own learning rhythm? Let’s connect — I’m always up for a chat.
Get in touch with Brett on Notitia's team page.
Brett Earle is Notitia's Senior Web Developer at Notitia, bringing a practical, full-stack approach to solving complex problems with clarity and impact.
He’s played a leading role in projects like Bubup Wilam, Aboriginal Child and Family Centre, where he helped build a bespoke web platform that manages holistic child-and family data, ensuring data sovereignty and cultural appropriateness for an early childhood education and wellness setting. Brett also spearheaded a custom solution integrating Monday.com with a tailored invoicing system to streamline client workflows.
Self-taught and adaptable, he’s fluent in technologies like SQL, Svelte, Node, TypeScript, and Azure, and brings experience from diverse backgrounds including the Australian Defence Force and trade work. He’s passionate about building tools that both solve real-world challenges and make a difference for communities.
