The two mindsets: Engineer VS Frameworker thinking

When I begin my journey as a Frontend developer, I heard a piece of advice from my Senior developer that always stuck in my head.

Coding the design and implementing it is the easiest part. The real key point that makes you a better developer is your problem-solving skills.

As time goes on, I am starting to understand the importance of this legendary advice. We often see those high-tier developers and their impressive solutions. Without their exceptional problem-solving abilities, we would not have access to the powerful technologies we use daily.

Those type of people who have solid problem-solving skills often master the Engineering mindset. They start by defining the problem, they look for a solution that works, and keep improving with better and more efficient solutions.

On the other hand, there are many people who don’t have that engineering mindset, they are more picky about the technologies they use. When a new tool is released, they get hyped about it and often label their previous tools as ‘outdated’. They also tend to abandon or redo their side projects using the same excuse.

The latter type of individuals often lack that Engineering mindset. They are more like frameworkers who prioritize new technologies over practicality. They are more modern-like developers, but tend to lack consistency in their lives. While they may perform amazingly at first because of the excitement with the new tools, they often lose interest and start looking for the next big thing.

The fact: Neither of those two is better than the other

Based on my tone, you may have noticed that I tend towards engineering thinking as the best or the smore practical approach. That’s true, but actually it depends.

In the last two decades, we have seen a lot of companies almost dying because of their legacy systems, it doesn’t matter if their staff is great engineers or problem solvers, if they remain outdated, it’s over.

Let’s take a look at Yahoo! for example, it had one of the most known websites of the internet era, but its staff struggled a lot to keep themselves up to date with the rapidly evolving technologies. They clearly failed on realizing the power that new solutions could bring to their search engine. On the other hand, Google saw the real power of modern tech, they have built powerful cloud servers, and web applications, and even integrated the power of AI & Machine Learning into their search engine.

We see a lot of engineers dropping their journey because they weren’t up to date, the same way as we see frameworkers dropping their journey because lack of problem-solving skills, what’s the solution? Find a middle ground!

How to be a more creative and modern engineer?

If you are from the first type, and you find yourself way behind those hyped frameworkers that you daily see on social media platforms, here is a list of tips you can follow:

1. Stay Updated: Keep up with new technologies and frameworks.
2. Be Adaptable: Learn different tools that can simplify your tasks.
3. Practical Learning: Try out new frameworks via hands-on projects.
4. Don’t Reinvent: Avoid building from scratch when a solution already exists.

How to improve your engineering thinking?

If you find yourself closer to the frameworker mindset, here is a list of tips that you can work on to improve your engineering thinking:

1. Understand Fundamentals: Learn the core engineering principles.
2. Problem-Solving: Focus on developing your problem-solving skills.
3. Look Under the Hood: Learn how frameworks work internally.
4. Versatility: Don’t rely solely on a single framework; diversify your toolkit.

Final thoughts

Being a better developer is not being that hard-core engineer, nor being that die-hard frameworker with the “tool of the next era” nonsense.

It’s becoming a Tech-Balancer, who knows when to go old-school style and when to ride the waves of the latest tech!

So go ahead, and make some magic happen 🙂