Awesome article! I liked the writing style and actionability the article provides. I was thinking through my own journey so far as I was reading each tip.
Point 4 about "bringing joy to your work" stood out from this article because of the nuance that it conveys. While you don't need to make your job your life, bringing some energy to the atmosphere can only make the day to day more bearable. This point also leads up to a saying I believe in which is "People may forget what you said or did to them. They will never forget how you made them feel". Most young people tend to think that being right is what matters, but sooner or later you realize that how you make others feel tend to shape how others perceive you
I also would tell my younger self that you should be learning to ask for help in an effective way. It takes a team to do big things and you can't know everything on day 1! Humans survived for millions of years because they were able to form big groups and tell stories. I used to have a habit in university of going to office hours a bit too frequently. Yes it helped me build connections with the Teaching Assistants and meet my peers, but came at the cost of me asking too many questions. In the real world, there aren't "dumb questions", but there are questions where you didn't put enough legwork, which is why I tell interns and junior engineers to struggle for 30 minutes - 1 hr, document what steps are tried and if they're still blocked, ask for help and present what you tried
Your framework for asking questions is really valuable - I erred on the opposite side early in my career, not asking enough questions and wasting time reinventing wheels. The nuance for me: sometimes struggling IS the learning, but finding that balance between struggling enough to learn versus spinning unnecessarily is an art form. The "legwork" framing you use is perfect - it shows respect while still getting help when needed.
The distinction (thinking out loud): institutional knowledge (where's the config file?) versus expertise knowledge (how does this algorithm actually work?). For institutional stuff, ask immediately - no one gains from you hunting for internal wiki pages. For expertise, the struggle often IS the learning. My Google 20% time (back when it was a thing) was mostly "useless" tinkering, but years later I would pull solutions from those experiments because I had already wrestled with similar ideas. Big breakthroughs are often just many small experiments finally clicking together.
As you get senior, the calculus changes - sometimes you skip the struggle because the cost of being wrong is too high, or someone has context that would save the team hours. But you only develop that judgment after first building the discipline of trying independently.
Your point about how people remember how you made them feel over what you said - that's the hidden truth! We build software in teams, and nobody collaborates well with someone who makes them feel small, no matter how technically brilliant they are. The "brilliant jerk" is an alluring myth - they're rarely brilliant enough to make up for the damage they do. :-)
Appreciate your response to my comment! I think the institutional knowledge vs. expertise knowledge is a good framing for the "asking for help" piece. Great distillation and interesting angle on this!
Aw thank you! Sometimes I wonder if I'm just writing what I aspire to be versus what I actually do, so this is really validating. Hope you're well too, friend!
Wow. So much wisdom in this, thanks for sharing 😀 This one really hit home right now: test: “Find something fascinating in today’s tasks. Not tomorrow’s dream job.”
Awesome article. Unfortunately in my current team were ideas are either stolen or surpressed, I have the last my interest to bring new ideas on table. I particularly resonate with your last piece of the article not everything is perfect and we have navigate through with what we have. Thanks for writing!
Really awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and advice. I hope younger folks like me can internalize these lessons before it's too late.
I am 4 years into corporate world, and big tech. I've been feeling stuck for a while. Your reflections captured things I've had a hard time putting into words. It highlights mistake I've made, decisions that needed more thought, and ones I need to make. But man, better to learn now than later! Thank you so much for this!
Awesome article! I liked the writing style and actionability the article provides. I was thinking through my own journey so far as I was reading each tip.
Point 4 about "bringing joy to your work" stood out from this article because of the nuance that it conveys. While you don't need to make your job your life, bringing some energy to the atmosphere can only make the day to day more bearable. This point also leads up to a saying I believe in which is "People may forget what you said or did to them. They will never forget how you made them feel". Most young people tend to think that being right is what matters, but sooner or later you realize that how you make others feel tend to shape how others perceive you
I also would tell my younger self that you should be learning to ask for help in an effective way. It takes a team to do big things and you can't know everything on day 1! Humans survived for millions of years because they were able to form big groups and tell stories. I used to have a habit in university of going to office hours a bit too frequently. Yes it helped me build connections with the Teaching Assistants and meet my peers, but came at the cost of me asking too many questions. In the real world, there aren't "dumb questions", but there are questions where you didn't put enough legwork, which is why I tell interns and junior engineers to struggle for 30 minutes - 1 hr, document what steps are tried and if they're still blocked, ask for help and present what you tried
Your framework for asking questions is really valuable - I erred on the opposite side early in my career, not asking enough questions and wasting time reinventing wheels. The nuance for me: sometimes struggling IS the learning, but finding that balance between struggling enough to learn versus spinning unnecessarily is an art form. The "legwork" framing you use is perfect - it shows respect while still getting help when needed.
The distinction (thinking out loud): institutional knowledge (where's the config file?) versus expertise knowledge (how does this algorithm actually work?). For institutional stuff, ask immediately - no one gains from you hunting for internal wiki pages. For expertise, the struggle often IS the learning. My Google 20% time (back when it was a thing) was mostly "useless" tinkering, but years later I would pull solutions from those experiments because I had already wrestled with similar ideas. Big breakthroughs are often just many small experiments finally clicking together.
As you get senior, the calculus changes - sometimes you skip the struggle because the cost of being wrong is too high, or someone has context that would save the team hours. But you only develop that judgment after first building the discipline of trying independently.
Your point about how people remember how you made them feel over what you said - that's the hidden truth! We build software in teams, and nobody collaborates well with someone who makes them feel small, no matter how technically brilliant they are. The "brilliant jerk" is an alluring myth - they're rarely brilliant enough to make up for the damage they do. :-)
Appreciate your response to my comment! I think the institutional knowledge vs. expertise knowledge is a good framing for the "asking for help" piece. Great distillation and interesting angle on this!
Thank you!
Thank you for sharing!
Loved the article.
Esp the quote : hindsight has a way of making random walks look like deliberate strategy
Thank you for such wonderful jems of advice !
Awesome article! I was reading I remembered how you behaved in our interactions and it matched perfectly, like the part about making friends!
Hope your well my friend!
Aw thank you! Sometimes I wonder if I'm just writing what I aspire to be versus what I actually do, so this is really validating. Hope you're well too, friend!
Wow. So much wisdom in this, thanks for sharing 😀 This one really hit home right now: test: “Find something fascinating in today’s tasks. Not tomorrow’s dream job.”
Awesome article. Unfortunately in my current team were ideas are either stolen or surpressed, I have the last my interest to bring new ideas on table. I particularly resonate with your last piece of the article not everything is perfect and we have navigate through with what we have. Thanks for writing!
Great blog! Thanks for sharing your experiences.
One of the best things on the internet. So relatable!
This has been the most impressive stack I’ve read! Well done 👏
Really awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and advice. I hope younger folks like me can internalize these lessons before it's too late.
This was very insightful
I am 4 years into corporate world, and big tech. I've been feeling stuck for a while. Your reflections captured things I've had a hard time putting into words. It highlights mistake I've made, decisions that needed more thought, and ones I need to make. But man, better to learn now than later! Thank you so much for this!
Thankyou so much for taking the time to post this! these are priceless.
Great Read. A lot to learn from. Thanks