7 ms·
Ask HN: How much does the environment you're in contribute to performance?
It's a circle I've been trying to square recently as part of my career.
Backstory essay: I'm 6 years into my career. I spent 5 of those in the same company - company A, working up from a Grad engineer to an SDE3, 3 promos, in that company. I had a very few stumbles there and always performed and handled transition pretty well.
I jumped ship January of this year over company changes, projects getting cancelled and stopping from a revolving door of Product heads coming in and out. My goal is not to get a senior title but to progress in my knowledge and move on from JS over to a Java focus. I want to build a product or even just some features; I want to code and earn my way to seniority; not start and stop every quarter.
I move to the next company, Company B, in March as SDE; everyone else on the team is Senior SDE with 7+ years experience and above: I'm the most junior.
Company B is a start up and I'm expected to contribute from the off; build out big features and bring some solid knowledge base to the team... but I just totally crap the bed.
The code I write is problematic; there's no documentation to set stuff up, so I go without the code running on my local machine for a while, which obviously causes issues. I make a bunch of amateur mistakes and my direct team lead takes a dislike to me for, naturally, messing up a lot. I go from the guy who can solve the problem and save the day to the guy causing the problem; I'm not trusted at all (and why would they)?
I'm lashed with negative feedback in my first couple weeks, so buck up and genuinely put huge effort in; my code gets better, but the team lead expects tickets closed faster than I can. I feel incredibly untalented and dreadful at my job; every one of my system design choices are the incorrect ones and aren't taken into account. Eventually - right before probation ends - I'm terminated when I fail to complete an MVP of a new system feature.
Obviously, I'd seen the writing on the wall, started interviewing elsewhere and now work at Company C, but as a Senior Software Engineer this time.
Company C is a big company in a bit of a niche area. I'm working on a team migrating from a dreadful old system to a more modern Micro-service base system. I'm expecting to do dreadful and underperform, get fired and end up exiting the industry within a couple weeks.
Instead, I'm back to my old self again: I'm reviewing code with confidence, pushing up solid features, contributing to initiatives and mentoring junior developers again. The code and features I write are solid and passing QA.
There's no tech lead helping me, so I'm just using my gut and it's going swimmingly. I have discussions with the other senior engineer on the team and my technical knowledge is respected; my relationship with my manager is pleasant and I'm performing accordingly.
It's only been a couple months but I feel like myself again; like I went from the back of the herd to the front of the pack... but I'm still so confused about what exactly is the root of my performance increase; or rather, what made me become worse.
Has anyone else ever had this sort of experience, this sort of bumpy ride in their career? Are start-ups hard to work in that larger companies specifically because of expectations, of what's considered "appropriate" at different levels? Am I just a lucky idiot fumbling back in and not even realising?
- dougmwne 4y agoI think this is a great question that deserves a book-length response. Instead I will say, yes absolutely, environment is everything. We are like the dust on the wind. This is important in our careers, but also in our personal lives and everything we strive to do. The fastest way to change yourself is to change your environment. Whoever said "wherever you go, there you are" was dead wrong in my view. A great environment can bring out the best in the worst of us and a bad environment can turn the best of us into villains. I have experienced going from the front of the pack to the back, then the reverse several times in my career. And the back of the pack is soul destroying. It obliterates your confidence and with it, your competence. A friendly environment can build up even the most junior team member and a hostile environment tears everyone down. It's not you. You are great and worthy and you should always take yourself where you will be most appreciated.
- JoeMayoBot 4y agoI believe that environment counts a lot and it sounds like that is what happened to you. I remember a long time ago, hearing about a study done in Math classrooms where the teachers expected the boys to do better than the girls and that is what happened. Simultaneously, they had a Math teacher who expected all of their students (boys and girls) to do well and that is what happened. Part of leadership is believing in the people who work with you. They need to create an environment where everyone can be successful. The people in that environment need to tolerate mistakes. Senior developers need to have an attitude that if other developers mess anything up, it's because of knowledge or skill and that the person is doing their best. Then do what is necessary to help that person overcome their weaknesses. That said, there are people beyond help for various reasons. However, the majority of people I ever worked with want to do a good job. I've been in that situation before too and learned that the best think to do is start a new job search right away.
- dereg 4y agoFor what it’s worth, I recall one factoid from some planet money episode a long, long time ago, that the quality of a supervisor determines roughly 75% of your overall performance. Unfortunately, I cannot cite the episode nor can I cite the source within that episode. If I had to take a guess, it was someone from Harvard business school. The reason why I remember that number rather is because it fits right in line with my experience. I was much younger in my career then, after after learning that, I immediately had zero tolerance for bad management. It was clear that the only way out was to either jump ship or get your existing manager out of your hair. That’s when it’s crucial to manage upwards. With even bad managers, if you can figure out their motivations, then you can figure out a way for them to leave you alone.