Ask HN: What career advice would you give your younger self?
What were your biggest wastes of time? What do you wish you spent more time on?
Savings are good, and compound interest is quite a thing to behold. But it's worth keeping in mind that you can put yourself in a position such that 40 year old you is pulling in over 10X what 25 year old you was. So beyond a certain point, killing yourself to sock away an extra few grand a year might not be the best plan.
Get a good six figure cushion socked away in your 20s so that you know you won't starve if the market goes south, and so that you can skip off on a year long round-the-world trip when the mood strikes. But after that, don't feel so bad about slacking off a bit. Go actually take that long trip (a few times). Just make sure you're always taking every opportunity you can find to bump up that bill rate.
Then take that new rate and double your lifetime savings in a single year at some point in your 40s.
I think I've spent the first five years of my career drastically underselling myself imagining that everyone else is some epic programmer whose class interfaces spring fully formed from their fingertips when really a large number of the people who "talk the talk" turned out to be just full of a lot of air.
If someone assigns you to a project you really don't want to do, its better to search for a new opportunity sooner rather than later. When you want to go back to what you really want to do, you will have to answer a lot of questions about why you haven't been doing it lately.
Being assigned to the wrong projects early in ones career can effectively kill it or turn it a way you don't want it to go, so beware of that.
Try different jobs early in your career, stay at most two years early on. Growth is very much improved by seeing different projects, different teams.
Corporate training is usually limited and imposed by law, invest on your own training. Technical PDF books are affordable as well as many certifications. Take them in your own free time and don't wait for the company to pay/approve them.
Try to build something you like in your free time, learning is a continuous process and not something that you do once when you where 20.
On advice, cut-out the mindless web surfing & TV. Cut back on the drinking, get outside, enjoy nature more.
Realize that business and political acumen is a learnable skill: read the classic business/interpersonal books like Crucial Conversations, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and others. Most business books are pure fluff, but there are truly great works out there.
You will probably stay at your first job too long. It feels safe and has some nice benefits, but you won't really grow unless you experience different workplaces.
Also, stop playing those video games. Start doing stuff instead of reading and talking about it.