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Not totally off-base, but any time I'm feeling anxious about the value of "old" skills, I realize that might just be SV talking. These "old school" skills will

by rconti 8y ago

Not totally off-base, but any time I'm feeling anxious about the value of "old" skills, I realize that might just be SV talking. These "old school" skills will be useful for some time to come in less-cutting-edge orgs, labs, etc.

eropple 8y ago
It's not the skills. Skills are whatever; you can learn skills. It's being exposed to, and forced to work through the lens of, a modern mindset that is valuable. Without that that mindset and that lens, you have an expiration date that's a lot closer than most people want to admit--and it's only going to get harder, not easier, as more and more people with that expiration date stamped on their foreheads are competing for fewer and fewer of what amount to (and I don't use this word pejoratively but descriptively) legacy positions. Here's an example of a modern mindset with trailing-edge technologies: I'm having to learn VMware for my current job. I had hoped to literally never do so. (I don't want to manage a data center. But if you use certain cloud providers...you manage a tiny data center.) But I am learning and applying VMware through the lens of pervasive automation and systematization of the problems I'm actually trying to solve. While the team in place before me spent most of their time installing minimal automation (configuration, monitoring, etc.) we are making it a prerequisite of our ownership of the infrastructure for this team's product. Because we like to be able to sleep at night.
- rconti 8y ago
  Yeah, the mindset is critical. I'm actually 3/4 of the way through the Mindset book, and I definitely see a lot of myself in the fixed mindset; it's gotten worse as I get older, but I'm having a great time learning new things now. I almost stepped back into a role where I could generate a TON of value for the company, but something stopped me. Only later did I realize why it was a good decision. My discomfort at feeling like I'm struggling to learn new things (in a role that was almost ALL new things) made me want to seek refuge in a position where I would be extremely valuable. But it wasn't going to generate value for me. The growth and the learning is valuable for me, and as long as you can find roles that nurture that and allow you to do so, you're winning and growing your skills.

by rconti 8y ago

eropple 8y ago

It's not the skills. Skills are whatever; you can learn skills. It's being exposed to, and forced to work through the lens of, a modern mindset that is valuable. Without that that mindset and that lens, you have an expiration date that's a lot closer than most people want to admit--and it's only going to get harder, not easier, as more and more people with that expiration date stamped on their foreheads are competing for fewer and fewer of what amount to (and I don't use this word pejoratively but descriptively) legacy positions. Here's an example of a modern mindset with trailing-edge technologies: I'm having to learn VMware for my current job. I had hoped to literally never do so. (I don't want to manage a data center. But if you use certain cloud providers...you manage a tiny data center.) But I am learning and applying VMware through the lens of pervasive automation and systematization of the problems I'm actually trying to solve. While the team in place before me spent most of their time installing minimal automation (configuration, monitoring, etc.) we are making it a prerequisite of our ownership of the infrastructure for this team's product. Because we like to be able to sleep at night.

rconti 8y ago
Yeah, the mindset is critical. I'm actually 3/4 of the way through the Mindset book, and I definitely see a lot of myself in the fixed mindset; it's gotten worse as I get older, but I'm having a great time learning new things now. I almost stepped back into a role where I could generate a TON of value for the company, but something stopped me. Only later did I realize why it was a good decision. My discomfort at feeling like I'm struggling to learn new things (in a role that was almost ALL new things) made me want to seek refuge in a position where I would be extremely valuable. But it wasn't going to generate value for me. The growth and the learning is valuable for me, and as long as you can find roles that nurture that and allow you to do so, you're winning and growing your skills.