Ask HN: How do I learn software engineering and transition to building products?
I am a 33-year-old developer living in South Korea. I work mostly in the industrial sector, far from major IT hubs, so I rarely have people around me to discuss programming with or to review my code.
My career isn’t "strong" in the traditional sense. Most of my work has been practical B2B freelancing: PLC/ladder-based control systems for factory equipment, desktop applications using WinForms and occasionally WPF, and small-scale web projects like e-commerce sites and business homepages for local clients.
I have delivered software to about 40 companies and over 380 individual clients. But to be honest, much of this work relies on modifying existing templates and repeating similar patterns.
Because of this, I often feel like I am not a "real" programmer in the way many here might expect. My knowledge comes from Microsoft documentation and classic books like Code Complete, Effective C++, and Out of the Tar Pit, rather than from working inside strong engineering teams. I've recently been reading books like Building Microservices to catch up, but I still feel like I'm lagging behind modern Western engineers.
Recently, using AI tools made programming exciting again, but it also made me realize exactly how much I don't know. Being a non-native English speaker has made it harder to access information and network, and I've realized my tech stack and practices are a bit dated. To break out of this bubble and connect with the global community, I’m finally ditching SVN for Git and built a bilingual personal site (www.makonea.com).
To be completely honest about my situation: I originally wanted to move to Seoul (Korea's tech hub) to join a proper IT company. However, I fell victim to a massive housing lease fraud (a severe and known issue in Korea). I was forced to move to the provinces and spent the last few years just grinding to pay off that fraudulent debt. I have finally cleared it, but I’m finding it incredibly hard to keep doing this factory-level freelance work.
I want to leave the factory environment and become a product developer—someone who builds, owns, and operates software. I have delivered Unity games and websites before, but since I specialize in "fire-and-forget" delivery, I have almost zero experience in operating and maintaining a product over the long term.
My questions are:
What are the best places (blogs, forums, newsletters, communities) to learn serious software engineering beyond the beginner level?
How can someone outside the US/Big Tech ecosystem judge whether information or a specific practice is actually high quality?
What technologies or practices should I focus on to transition from a freelance "deliverable" mindset to building and operating scalable products?
Are there good examples of small, successful products built by solo developers that I can study?
Any advice or pointers would be deeply appreciated. Thank you.