After a decade in software industry

On July 4th, 2021, I completed 10 years in software industry. Thanks to each of my mentors, managers, peers, team members, leadership and other unsung heroes whom I met along the way. I personally feel I have transformed as an individual from what I was in the last decade both professionally and personally.

In this post, I am going to articulate 10 learnings which I have distilled from my experience and I have tried to keep them generic enough to be applicable in any job or a role. If you are a young engineer or a doctor or an accountant starting with your career or you have already started it, this post is for you.

[Disclaimer: These are my personal experiences, they have worked for me in my situations. Feel free to analyze and hand-pick them.]

1. “Nail the basics” — I believe what makes us different is the mastery of our craft. Identify the core competency of your Job profile and try to champion it. e.g. for Computer science folks, Data structure and algorithm is the key ingredient, accounts for a business professional etc.
2. “Grit” — This is hands down the most important attribute. It is the drive to make progress, the drive to take things to finish line and solve puzzles. I have been in situations where I didn’t know all the answers, but the drive and positive energy to take things to the finish line always helped me. Trust me, the feeling of completion is sweet :)
3. “Disruption” — Again, this is very personal to me and it may not apply to everyone. For all of you who know me, it is always binary 0 or 1 for me. If we are not impacting top line or bottom line of the organization we don’t need to exist for the organization. I would recommend to find teams and areas which have not been disrupted already and make a contribution to them.
4. “Grow together” — There will be times when you are not the smartest person in the team. I would recommend to stay modest and open to learning. Sometimes it is good to just dial in and listen to conversation. It works best having a mentor and a mentee. Alongside growing ourselves and we should keep growing others, that’s how we scale.
5. “Life outside work” —I know, folks reading this point must be thinking — “Oh, yes.” but I can’t put enough emphasis on this item. We all undermine it but I would encourage spending time with friends, family and your loved ones; it is always delightful. You will remember the last boat trip you had in Glacier instead of an issue in your code (Not outages, they are different :)). Also, your next job or your next->next job will be offered by someone you already know. So, take time off and enjoy those beautiful countryside, racing tracks or concerts you always wanted to go. The Mountains and beaches are waiting for you.
6. “Step into discomfort” — I personally don’t like comfort zone. It makes me nervous. My suggestion is that we should continue to explore and move to a new territory, unknowns and figure it out. That’s when the muscle building happen. Keep looking for opportunities in what you haven’t done before, initiatives which you never took and jump right into it. Trust me, you will outgrow in that role. As SoFi’s CEO Anthony Noto says — “Make your footprint bigger than your foot”.
7. “Be the leader you want to see” — Picture a meeting where nobody was leading it. Must not be a great experience, right? I would encourage all of you to be the leader we want to see in the room. Take the lead, drive things and build right processes for future leaders to succeed.
8. “Prioritized Time management”— all of the things I have mentioned above will not matter, if you don’t reach the spot on right time. Have a todo list, prioritize it and keep striking off the item as you complete them. Ships sail, opportunities get missed, lives get lost, medals are not won if you are not on time.
9. “Criticize constructively and inclusively” —Human being are hardwired to have ego, pride and confidence. Be polite in giving feedback and make it actionable. The worst feedback I have ever received has been non-actionable one. The people you are working with are no fools, help them succeed and they will reciprocate.
10. “Communication” — I can’t emphasize on this enough. Always communicate stakeholders and people associated with the project or task you are assigned to. Over-communication is not a bad thing. Under communication will cause false assumptions and radio silences.

Feel free to drop a comment on your favorite key takeaways out of these ten learnings. I am happy to hear your takeaways from your experiences.