A few days ago, I handed in my badge and my company sponsored MacBook and went home with a suitcase of my office tea stash. This marked the end of my time at FiscalNote, where I had spent the past three years building software for policy and legislation.
I remember in my first week, I asked my manager, “Should I work on tickets (tasks) that I somewhat knew how to do?” Well, 22-year-old me, that’s not how you learn. On my last day, I merged my final pull request (PR) for a project for which I had zero clue how to complete when I first started working on it. This PR had some 30,000 lines of changes. My first PR had 10. Now, I’m not one to equate lines of code with progress, but I do have some pride in how much I was able to learn the things I need to learn along the way, how resourceful and proactive I was in seeking out resources and help, and how effectively I built out part of a complex system with tools, technologies, and frameworks that were previously foreign to me.
During my farewell happy hour, one of my coworkers commended my ability to ramp up on whatever project I was assigned to and become an expert on it. Naturally, I didn’t realize this was true until someone explicitly said it. I think this ability is motivated by two things. First, it’s fun for me to learn new things and to work on different types of problems, so I try to work on as many new things as possible. Second, there was a point when I realized that I wanted to be indispensable. This was partly driven by anxiety towards layoffs, i.e. I wanted to have some level of expertise such that I couldn’t be laid off without creating a significant setback to the team. I also like when people come to me for help. It makes me feel needed and valued. In any case, I wonder if breadth and agility will continue to be my strong suit as I progress in my career.
This reminds me of a discussion I had with my bandmates. We were reflecting on a video in which the narrator talks about the core values of certain genres. Rock music, which is what we play, values athleticism, exertion, energy, agility, and hard work. In music, this means writing challenging vocal lines that I don’t always know how to sing but have to figure out and train for. I like to think I carry that same attitude in my professional life.
Some things I would like to work on going forward. One is proposing new ideas. It's not that I don't have ideas; I do. However, I tend to think I need a fully-fledged out thought before presenting it to others. I also tend to think there are more important matters to discuss, especially when priorities are driven by business needs. I think that bouncing ideas off other people is good in terms of fleshing out the idea with other people and creating space for collaboration and collective innovation. I think that prioritizing is a different concern. Maybe I fear that the ideas I present are low priority. Maybe I fear that the ideas I present are out of scope. Maybe I shouldn’t let fear outweigh my enthusiasm for an idea.
I’d also like to do more exploratory work related to my professional life. Whether it's reading articles or trying out new technologies or creating proofs-of-concept for something I find interesting. Maybe this also means doing work to "study" and "explore" rather than reach a goal. The other day, I commented how it seems rare that musicians ever do "studies" like visual artists do. And by that I mean doing something repetitively but changing a few parameters to understand the subject better. For example, sketching out hands in different configurations, sketching out a scene at different times of day. With music, this might mean writing short pieces with different delay effects, putting the same melody in different contexts, etc. I'm not sure what it would be for software development, but a POC kind of fits the idea of doing a small project to enhance your understanding of something. On the other hand, research, by nature, involves studies. Ultimately, I think I’d like to branch off and play with ideas more. I do this in my personal life, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed by duties in my professional life that there is little room for this type of play.
I don’t know how to end this reflection. I think that there are many more aspects of the job I could reflect on, but these are the things that immediately come to mind in terms of how I have grown. I’m deeply grateful for all the experiences I’ve had, for all the people I’ve met, and for all the work that I’ve done. Here’s to the next chapter!