10 items
Senior developers often say they don't know much, then spend 15 minutes explaining the auth and caching behind their 'simple' API. Run it recursively: what do you do, and what do you need to know to do that? The lessons you've forgotten are gold to everyone behind you.
Developers with 10+ years in one codebase often treat it as a liability: old stack, short resume, behind on the latest. It's depth most developers never get. Write down the 3 hardest problems that system taught you to solve. That's your story.
Developers move from problem to problem, so at review time the only wins we remember are the recent ones. The Receipt Gap is the distance between the value you delivered and the value anyone can point to. Close it with one line every Friday.
AI lets me write an order of magnitude more code than by hand. When it breaks at two in the morning, the model isn't the one responsible. More output means more ownership, not less.
The easy trap in a job search is thinking you just need more interviews. If the right people don't understand what you're good at, more applications get the same result. Opportunities come from being understood, not just qualified.
Good developers assume the code will speak for itself. Then fewer bugs and fewer escalations turn them into the person nobody has to think about, and the company guesses their value low. Make the decisions visible, not the output.
You don't post on LinkedIn to become a content creator. You post so that when someone asks 'do you know a developer who can handle this?', somebody thinks of you. It's a long game, and it beats the resume line.
Developers prep for the next job with more certs, more side projects, more LeetCode. If the real problem is that the right people don't know what you can do, more skill doesn't fix it. Ask who needs to know what you already know.
Dozens of developers in three weeks told me they're considering leaving the industry, not for a new calling but because they think there's no room left. The resume game is broken. Go around it.
Most developers define themselves by their tech stack, and that's incomplete. Six questions (what you build, who for, with what, what you're known for, your philosophy, where you're going) give you a position and a direction.