I was going to say "or at least do a little continuing education." I think that would work for some, but you're probably right... many (most? all? some?) engineers will learn better in an environment where the whole team has bought into various assumptions and you're hip deep in it every day.
Yes. I'm a huge proponent of continuing education (which can come in a variety of forms, not just in a classroom). I think it's a huge shame that this isn't part of software dev culture like it is in most other professional fields.
But a large part of education is actually practicing what you learn in a realistic and persistent way. You can do that outside of a work environment, but it's easiest inside of one. And since most devs advance their salaries and careers through changing jobs anyway, it makes sense to me to include learning new skills as one of the things you look for in a new position.
