Hey everyone,
I’m a software engineer with over 3 years of experience in the MEAN/MERN stack. I took a career break after moving to Canada in late 2022, and while I’ve kept an eye on things, it feels like the tech world — especially AI — has sprinted miles ahead while I blinked.
Now I’m ready to get back in and rebuild my momentum. I want to realign myself with what’s current in full stack development and understand how AI fits into a modern engineer’s toolkit.
My background includes React, Angular, Node.js, MongoDB, SQL, Docker, and Git — plus a beginner-level comfort with AI tools.
If anyone’s got advice, structured roadmaps, or just insights on what to prioritize in 2025, I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks for helping a fellow dev reboot smarter.
Top comments (1)
Kudos for jumping back in! I didn't take a break like you did, I just started late altogether 😆 Those are the things that can grant you a unique perspective, though.
If you want to get onboard with AI, I might can help with that part at least. I recommend starting with GitHub Copilot cause it's the cheapest option at $10 monthly, and second is that if you can learn how to effectively manage connect windows there—anything else will seem magical. That gives you the online completions, autonomous coding agent (GHA workflows inflate the bill a little, but it's not terrible), copilot code reviews, Copilot's CLI functionality, and a couple more things.
Step one—create instructions for whichever repos you plan to use. I wrote a couple explanations of those files you'll find if you pull my profile.
Start work anything non-mission critical, but just play with it. When results deviate from what you expect, figure out why first. Then fix it.
Check out the github/spec-kit repo and awesome-copilot, too! Reach out if you need help. Odds are I've written about it somewhere already and I def spent a few days figuring it out at some point.
Good luck!