Today is exactly 20 years that I started coding professionally. In those years, I have: Still, I have missed a lot more, and it took too long. I think I could have speedrun this career to get most of those attributes of success in 5 years if I applied early the attitude, the principles, and the priorities that I’ve learned. If you are starting your career, this text can save 15 years of your life. Imagine having all of that list (except IEEE, which takes 10 years) at the age of 23 and not 38 that I am now. In the first part, I will briefly describe my career for the context. In the second part, I will go through each separate piece of advice that I think would have the strongest impact.