IT Engineering Skills: Teaching as a Growth Strategy

“If you want to master something, teach it.” — Richard Feynman

In the fast-paced world of IT engineering, staying technically sharp is a must. New platforms, new technologies, new vulnerabilities… the learning never stops. But there’s a powerful growth strategy that often gets overlooked: teaching others.

At first glance, teaching might seem like something you do once you’ve “made it.” But the truth is, teaching is a way of improving your own understanding. It benefits not just the person you’re helping, but you as well.

1. Learn It

Every engineer starts by getting hands-on: digging into documentation, setting up labs, breaking things, fixing them, and repeating the process.

But early learning is often fragile in more ways than one. It’s shaped by:

• The particular problems you need to solve right now
• Your unique environment constraints
• The resources available to you in the moment

You learn exactly what you need in that moment without broader architectural context. And without reinforcement, that knowledge fades. You forget the extra step you tried, the workaround that finally worked, or the mistake that helped it all make sense. The nuance that made the lesson stick can slip away just as easily as it came.

2. Do It

Practice makes perfect… or at least proficient.

You solve real-world problems. You troubleshoot production issues. You build confidence in your tools and instincts. But even experienced engineers can fall into patterns of relying on habits instead of deep understanding. It’s easy to keep doing something that works without remembering why it works, or to lose sight of the foundational principles that led you there in the first place.

3. Teach It

Here’s where the real transformation happens. When you prepare for and explain a concept to someone else—especially someone newer or less technical—you’re forced to clarify your own thinking. You can’t gloss over unclear logic or skip steps they haven’t learned yet.

Suddenly, you’re aware of your assumptions. You spot the gaps in your own understanding. You go back, dig deeper, and level up your own knowledge.

Preparation Is Key

Teaching isn’t something you just wing. The real growth happens in the preparation.

Before you can teach something well, you have to break it down. That means asking yourself:

• What’s the real goal here?
• What concepts are prerequisites?
• Where might someone get stuck?
• Do I actually understand how all the parts connect?

You diagram. You document. You re-trace your own steps. And in doing so, you uncover gaps you didn’t know were there. Teaching forces you to confront the limits of your understanding—and that’s where real mastery is built.

Why Teaching Strengthens Engineers

• Clarifies Your Thinking: Explaining a concept forces you to simplify and structure your knowledge.
• Reinforces the Fundamentals: Teaching strengthens the foundations that routine experience alone might cause you to overlook.
• Builds Communication Skills: Whether you’re writing architectural documentation or presenting in an executive meeting, clear communication is a critical engineering skill.
• Creates a Culture of Growth: Sharing what you know helps raise the technical bar across your entire team or community.

Make Teaching Part of Your Workflow

You don’t need to be a principal architect, a public speaker, or a seasoned author to start teaching. Try this:

• Walk a teammate through how you diagnosed and solved a tough production issue.
• Write a quick internal guide or article on something you just learned.
• Give a short walkthrough during a team sync or lunch-and-learn.
• Improve the documentation you wish had existed when you got started.

If you want to grow as an engineer, teach. If you want to grow as a leader, teach. Because the best way to deepen your own understanding is to help someone else gain theirs.