2 career lessons that altered my brain chemistry 💡
I have been in tech for 10 years and these are 2 major career lessons that pivoted me to think differently.
- You can’t have it all.
2 years into my career, I had two job offers that I was considering. I was early in my career and was having a hard time deciding.
I talked to my mentor and the advice they gave me completely changed how I evaluated future decisions when looking for a new team or role.
Their exact words were:
Assuming money is constant, you have 3 options👇🏽
a) People you will work with
b) The type of work you will do
c) Your manager
In a perfect world, you will have all three in your next role; but in reality, you will only find two to be true.
Pick your two and make a decision.
This framework has helped me in every job decision since.
Among the 3 options, the one I never compromise on: manager.
I can do boring work with a great manager, but even the most exciting work is not worth it to me with a bad manager.
- What I do today is 10% of what I learned in school 💻
I remember when I was in school, there was so much pressure to
- pick the right major
- take classes with highest-rated professors
- find internships that look good on resume
- become a club president
- maintain a 4.0 GPA and so on…
Yes, these are important and I checked off everything on the list ✅
But what I didn’t know until much later was that learning doesn’t stop at school.
These learnings came from failing multiple projects (one time I took down one of the 6 database cluster and caused sev 2 🫢), picking projects out of comfort zone outside, and taking constructive feedback with an open mind (even when you don't want to).
Learning will not stop after school. It will come in many forms. You just have to become good at identifying these opportunities and learn from them. It's critical for growth.
My colleagues Ethan Evans, Omar Halabieh, Steve Huynh, Rajdeep Saha are all sharing insights on pivotal career lessons they have learned.
What are your big career lessons that you wish you knew earlier?
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