Who am I?

Hey there 👋 I'm Anurag Bhandari. I have been a generalist software engineer for more than a decade. From services to startup to research to consulting to product, I've been collecting and applying my skills pretty diversely. I've also authored two books on programming. I started my "enterprise" journey with .NET, switched over to JavaScript, and am currently heavy in PHP.

Nowadays, engineering @ Automattic.

What makes me tick?

I subscribe to the jack of all trades philosophy. I strongly believe that to succeed in the ever-changing tech landscape of today, a software developer must constantly learn new skills as required at work. Gone are the days when specializing in one technology or stack could propel you in a traditional technical hierarchy.

My mantra to learn rapidly and effectively is to master the 20% of a skill that will account for 80% of my application's codebase (see Pareto Principle).

Why does it work?

By applying the 20% method of learning, I can be productive in any skill in less than a week. Time gained by focusing on fewer (but important) concepts allows me to jump into development early. However, it's paramount that I learn that 20% the right way*. Quick and deep-enough learning leads to robust code that scales and requires less refactoring later.

*with BPST aspects - big-picture, performance, security, testing