In this blog post, I will call forth all the knowledge, insights, and experiences, accumulated during my six-year journey as a software developer in the corporate fin-tech and insure tech domains. With the art of storytelling, my sincere intention is to inspire, guide, and assist every reader who embarks upon this path.
As with any epic, it is scored expertly by a fine soundtrack to help deliver the emotion and wonder of the story. I humbly ask that if you want to experience this blog as it was written, you listen to the soundtracks provided as you read.
The fellowship of the ring
The Fellowship of the Ring Soundtrack-01-The Prophecy
I spent my first working day in anxiety and fear, taking in my first dose of imposter syndrome and generally feeling overwhelmed by the road that lay before me. I still remember feeling out of place not knowing what was required and whether I actually belonged to this field.
After a slow few days , I started to move more purposefully, I focused on work ethic and enthusiasm. That’s all I had to offer at the start, I didn’t have much technical skill, I had very little system or business knowledge but I knew I could put my hand up , my head down and just do the very best with each day I was given.
I found value in having a positive attitude and a hunger to learn. I did support logs , I updated documents, I made sure that I gave good feedback and put in a solid days work. It was these little steps that helped me move forward and started to earn me some recognition and respect. Its amazing what being reliable and positive can do to help you gain some influence.
Fortunately for my career , I would experience a taste of failure early as I completely bungled and missed the deadline on a piece of work I was supposed to complete. My manager , whom I expected to be furious, sat me down , looked at me calmly and with an incredible amount of empathy and compassion started putting together a plan to help me get my work done. That moment was pivotal for me , at a point where I was incredibly vulnerable and distraught , My manager was able to recognize my distress and handle me perfectly. I promised myself I would never be in that position again
Fast forward a few moments and at this point I was closing support tickets , creating system documentation , designing solutions to issues sufficiently above my skill level. I was vocal but also fiercely committed to learning and building relationships with my colleagues. Again, baby steps , I was not disillusioned about my lack of experience so I focused on doing the small things I knew how to do, really well and really fast.
I was just a trainee but I didn’t really feel like this should stop me from taking on some of the responsibilities of a senior. Our team was small , only 2 developers. These circumstances were both fortunate and unfavorable , fortunate in that I could assume some kind of a lead role but unfavorable in that I didn’t have the necessary senior guidance to teach me about good principles and habits.
To summarize my first phase with my most important lessons
- You cant be brilliant at the start , so be reliable and enthusiastic
- Being good at what’s expected of you is more valuable than being an expert at all the things that aren’t
- Be vocal and excited about your work , no matter how small or insignificant.
- A Job title is just a label , don’t let it stop you from punching above your weight class
I end this stretch being promoted from trainee to intermediate , 1.6 months and completely side stepping the junior role. It was a wonderful moment but far from the height I aspired to climb. it was filled with steep learnings and crazy opportunities and looking back I can say it was exactly the crucible that I needed. I am unshackled from my title as a trainee and I’m euphoric. Its such a strong affirmation that my plans and strategies and the countless sacrifices are paying off
The two towers
The Fellowship of the Ring ST-03-The Shadow of the Past
I did the early game pretty well but we’re in the mid game now and I need to figure out how to keep up the momentum. You cant be an impressive trainee when you’re an intermediate , the game changes , expectations are higher , you have to bring a different level of skill to the table.
The big picture starts unfolding and I’m starting to realize what I’ve gotten into. It was really nice to get bumped up but am I really an intermediate? Doubt starts to set in, I never had a senior to mark my homework so I’m starting to question whether I’m actually growing with the right habits.
Its important to always re-evaluate yourself, each day , each hour , I’m constantly re-evaluating. My technical knowledge is starting to get better but am I doing enough, should I be jumping on the hype trains for all the new technologies or should I just focus on what I know and improve there.
I need to find a way to prove myself and what better way than with a hackathon. I’ve always shied away from competitions , I let my fear of failure keep me from really going after what I want. This was different, I wanted this very badly , I needed proof that I was, who I was beginning to think I was. The hackathon is a full day affair and I remember those 24 hours very vividly , I had a great team mate but this was my awakening , my moment. The playing field was even , there were no circumstances beyond my control. This was entirely in my hands as it was in the hands of every other competitor. It was a massacre, Lewis Hamilton in the W11 , Cristiano Ronaldo in Real Madrid.
Its impossible to know if everyone else who competed took it as serious as I did but I just remember sitting down and watching everyone else’s presentations knowing that I had done something on a completely different level. I showed myself how limitless my boundaries were. The sense of accomplishment was undeniable , in one swift weekend I finally understood what I could bring to the table.
Fast forward a few months and its two hackathon wins in a row and I’m where I’ve always wanted to be, I have influence , respect and my peers admire me for my skill and work ethic. It was a great feeling but it was fleeting ,the confidence got replaced by indecision, the sense of achievement replaced by something existential. The questions I asked myself changed , Am I going to become something more or is this as high as I go? Am I as impressive in other companies or will I only ever be good in this environment.
At this point , I once again relied on the pivot . I started to look outside my team for opportunities to grow and learn. I felt like If I could learn other technologies I could improve my value proposition and I could grow as a young developer. It was nice to be “The Guy” when it came to certain implementations but I knew my fame would not be currency to other organizations and industries.
It became clear that I needed to walk the path less travelled. I didn’t just move out of my comfort zone , I left it behind. A new company , a fresh start.
To summarize my second phase with my most important lessons
- Awards , promotions , accolades are fleeting, enjoy them but learn to build sustainable happiness in your craft
- Don’t ever be afraid to pivot and change direction , your greatest opportunities will come from your willingness to start over
- Moving too quickly can be as detrimental to your growth as moving too slow , try to grow organically in your career
- In short , the middle part of my journey would become a definitive chapter in my road to senior and tech-lead. At this new company I had to deal with the vulnerability that comes with starting fresh and the anxiety of having the prove yourself all over again.
The Return of the king
The Return of the King Soundtrack-18-The Grey Havens
I’m out of my depth , I’m once again in a position of unfamiliarity , I’m struggling to figure things out. The tech is very new , the industry is even newer and I’m not the expert nor do I have the same level of influence I had at the other place. On top of all of this , I’m in a weird place personally , dealing with some incredible emotional and personal challenges. A cluster of obstacles and challenges all compounding into a variety of very difficult tests.
It is here where the battle lines are drawn and I needed to decide what kind of path would I take. If I made the wrong decision at any point it would cascade into all the interwoven personal and professional challenges and I might have ended up somewhere else , I might have given up or given in and let the calmness of a comfortable career slow me down and cool me off, but I had grown addicted to the madness , the intensity , the loud respect of being “that guy”. There’s a formula to this , I’ve never considered myself to be talented , my claim on why I would be successful is that I was relentless , a workhorse , the first to arrive and the last to leave. All throughout my life I had to deal with the idea that people were just naturally better than I was but I overcame that feeling knowing I was playing the long game.
Now all great stories have elements of immense personal tragedy and loss. Losing my mom was hard. In this life there will never be someone that will believe in me more than she did. She placed me in this world and willed the greatness out of me. Selfless and unconditionally kind , my mother knew that we weren’t fortunate enough to have advantages so she sacrificed as much as she humanly could to propel me forward. Well mum , this next chapter is yours. Lets get back to the story. Losing my mum was hard for so many reasons , and one of those reasons was that I didn’t feel like I had a chance to repay her for the life she sacrificed for me to lead. Haunted by this I set out on my path. I was given an absolute horror show of a task, recovering a failed project and getting it live. I needed an emotional engine , a complex system of converting grief into energy. I quickly put the pieces together and then fed it all the sorrow and personal tragedy I could muster. The results were ridiculous , I was solving complex computational problems across the entire project stack , building a fault tolerant , performant solution that just would not yield to any kind of testing. We delivered that project to standing ovations , one of the most stable platforms in the enterprise and easily the fastest.
The feeling was different this time , it was a controlled high and I knew that when it faded I would be okay. I had found my calling and discovered , through careful introspection , that I could achieve whatever I wanted to as long as my expectations were reasonable and I was willing to put in the effort. There’s a formula to this life and its based in being positive and willing to start again or change direction.
I get promoted to senior and the age of hardship and obstacle ends , 2 years later I become a tech-lead and even though my two years from senior to tech lead had its own difficulties and obstacles , I had been equipped with the skills to weather the storms.
My Journey started on the 3rd of April 2017 , I got promoted to technical Lead on the 1st of July 2023. 6 Years of my life in a flash.
If there is one thing that I can tell you , this career was my liberation. I was shackled by doubt , shackled financially , shackled by low self confidence and just dying internally for a chance to belong to something. I am realistic , I know there are people out there that are way better than I am , people who started with less and achieved amazing things. I’m not competing with those people , I’m only competing with the versions of myself that I need to improve in order to reach new heights. Will I reach the top? It doesn’t matter , as long as I put it all on the table and constantly seek new challengers , I will find joy and fulfillment in this craft. One day at the end of all things , all the best versions of myself , at all my ages of life will meet and watch me achieve all the things they made the sacrifices for me to achieve
I leave you now with this thought
What is the meaning of The Obstacle is the Way?
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. Holiday believes the secret to “an art known as turning obstacles upside down” can be found in these words. To act with “a reverse clause,” so there is always a way out or another route to get to where you need to go.