Once I felt like I had mastered a language I’d start learning another. The techniques in a new language would teach me things to take back to my primary language. Functional Programming for instance was great at teaching the value of simple functions. Prior to that I’d put everything in Objects which had implicit state leading to sometimes hard to reason about code. Also Objects still have a place for making easy to reason about code.
If I saw a new technology I thought would be useful I’d try it on my own before trying to incorporate at work.
Downtime at work was used to learn more programming by working on projects that would help make my life easier at work. Bash scripts, improved builds, improved developer tooling
In the corporate world. Learn the soft skills, when to talk when to be quiet. How to brag about your work appropriatly to get those raises.
Constant learning. Programming changes fast. If I stuck to what I started with my skills would be far out of date and my job selections would be slim.