4 ms·
Hmmmm I have a degree, but not in a closely related field. My first job out of college was very much an apprenticeship for me, making the transition from havin
by pacaro 9y ago
Hmmmm
I have a degree, but not in a closely related field. My first job out of college was very much an apprenticeship for me, making the transition from having been a kid who could program, to being an employee who could write software that existed in a wider context. I left that job 20 years ago, mostly because my opportunity for growth was limited, and am now a Principal Engineer at Amazon, and am a little past the hammer/nail stage.
Having presented myself as a counter example, I do have some observations. One of the "leadership principles" at Amazon is "Learn and be curious". It feels like this has been lacking in your experience, while it is everyone's responsibility to look out for themselves, it is a particular responsibility of more senior folks to provide guidance and mentoring to help avoid these traps.
- m_mueller 9y agoMaybe my point wasn't entirely clear. I actually think that an out-of-field degree may rather help than hurt, because you have an additional perspective - especially if it's a degree based in math. I definitely see your point about leadership though - university is just one thing, the right guidance at the first longer term job is certainly essential, and something I didn't yet have the luck to see. To sum up, I didn't mean to say that a degree is what you need, rather that people training only in tool usage often backfires later on, and doesn't necessarily help to get at the underlying fundamentals.