Here's how you can keep up with the latest technologies as a mid-career application developer.

Online courses are an excellent starting point for both foundational and advanced skills. Platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and Pluralsight offer targeted courses on a variety of programming languages and technologies. Look for courses that are up-to-date with the latest industry trends and technologies relevant to your startup. Focus on courses that offer practical exercises and real-world projects to ensure you’re not just learning theory but also applying your knowledge.

Nowadays, access to information is more versatile, and it is a very effective way to acquire more knowledge, thus increasing our capabilities to obtain job improvements. In my experience, online education has allowed me to stay current in the field of information technology. I have been able to learn different programming languages and I have seen the evolution of it.

In my experience, to keep up with the latest technologies, go to the tech community. Because in the tech community you can meet with different background developers so you can get information about the latest tech stack or deep stack. At the learning process, online courses and building side projects are the answers to making catch up with tech trends.

online courses and subscriptions to update events by experts in the different branches, frontend, backend, etc. follow the different official pages, as well as subscribe to newsletters.

In my experience keep up with reading habit, Subscribe to tech publications, forums, social media groups, hacker news.Ask questions to understand why this particular tech is different how is it better and what problem domain it is trying to solve.Identify what interest you . Bring your expertise to new tech find opportunities how you can improve the new tech by doing bug cleanup,contribute to open source projects ,that will embed you from starting in the eco system.

The tech community is extremely valuable for staying updated on the latest trends in the tech space. It provides a summary of everyone's research, which would be impossible to gather on your own in weeks. By leveraging the collective knowledge and insights of the tech community, you can stay informed and up-to-date on the latest developments, saving you time and effort.

One of the best ways that works out well for me is to do a hands-on side project. They are a relatively safer way to explore new things, self-paced, and you get the creative freedom to pick up components that you're most interested in first. Practice a few common things to translate your existing skillset and then gather pace. Once comfortable, start with designing the project in the technology/framework you'd be comfortable with but when you start implementing it, pick up that new technology/framework you were going to explore and implement using it. Gradually move to working on open source projects. This is one of the ways I've been able to pick up new programming languages, new DevOps tools, new architecture patterns and strategies.

The best things that I learned and forged me into becoming a developer that is sought after for insight, knowledge and implementation philosophy were solidified whenever I picked up some project idea and just kept at it diligently learning new things through each challenge I faced and the solution that I came up with.

Attending industry conferences and workshops is highly beneficial for staying updated with technological trends. These events offer direct access to expert knowledge through panels and keynote speeches. Workshops provide practical, hands-on experience with new technologies. Additionally, the networking opportunities at these events are invaluable, opening doors to potential collaborations and job prospects. Overall, participating actively in such gatherings can significantly enhance your industry knowledge and professional connections.