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Being able to deliver, seeing the big picture and recognizing the opportunities. Turning ideas into products. Becoming your own boss. Technology-wise, nothing

Being able to deliver, seeing the big picture and recognizing the opportunities. Turning ideas into products. Becoming your own boss. Technology-wise, nothing will guarantee you a safe future. Tools change all the time, every few years the names of the instruments you see in job ads get [almost] completely replaced. Every year more and more people go into IT attracted by high salaries, hence the competition always grows. You're just a few years away from realizing technologies will always change and you won't be able to keep up for long. You will also realize soon the tools are not that important compared to the problems you're trying to solve. Focus on preparing yourself for a leadership role and an independent future. Should pay off more than any next programming language you can learn (and then discard a few years later).

dorfuss 11y ago
This is an excellent answer. Read the first line once more: "able to deliver, seeing the big picture and recognizing the opportunities, turning ideas into products, becoming your own boss" I'd add: 1) Being able to sell. That means a lot of things: sell yourself (write a good CV, perform well at interviews, lead the team, convince others to your ideas). 2) Work hard. That does not mean work 20h a day (some people do, though, like Bill Gates in his early days or Elon Musk), but make the best use of the time you have, keep focused, be persistent, find the right people to share your workload with.
ljk 11y ago
> Focus on preparing yourself for a leadership role and an independent future as someone who's entry-level, what's the best way to "prepare for leadership role"? thanks!
- leap_ahead 11y ago
  This is a complex question and not the one I can answer in five minutes. But I'll give you some pointers. 1) Focus on broadening your skill set, not deepening it. If you like some tool and wish to explore it to the depth, that's fine, but do not stay there for a decade. Learn a full stack. Get things done from start to finish single-handedly. Several times over. 2) Adopt a certain mental state and attitude. Consider your job just a temporary assignment, an instrument for you to acquire valuable skills and meet important people. Know it can end at at any time, so can the next job, such that you will just be buying your time until your ship comes. Don't become a slacker though, do your job well, just don't expect it to secure your future till the retirement. 3) Adopt a critical view of the things. Get to form your own opinion and view on a variety of matters. Don't take anything for granted, check and verify things, try to guess problems and prepare for them so that they don't catch you by surprise. Learn to be in control. The trick is not to overdo it and not to start doing it too soon before you have acquired sufficient experience, otherwise your run the risk of turning into an arrogant all-knowing jerk impossible to work with. Be careful here. 4) Actively look for opportunities to try things on your own, be it taking a charge of a small project, helping a customer or building your own thing. Learn to feel being "one against the entire world". Don't let it scare you but instead excite you. 5) Invest in social skills just as much as you invest in technical proficiency. From a certain point of your professional growth your work becomes more social than technical. Learn to communicate well with various people. There is more to it of course but this should get you started. I'll add to this post if anything else crosses my mind.
  - ljk 11y ago
    that's very helpful, thanks!
- Bahamut 11y ago
  The two best summaries I can think of are care about your co-workers professionally and care about your craft. Just about anything else can be derived from this in how you act.

dorfuss 11y ago

This is an excellent answer. Read the first line once more: "able to deliver, seeing the big picture and recognizing the opportunities, turning ideas into products, becoming your own boss" I'd add: 1) Being able to sell. That means a lot of things: sell yourself (write a good CV, perform well at interviews, lead the team, convince others to your ideas). 2) Work hard. That does not mean work 20h a day (some people do, though, like Bill Gates in his early days or Elon Musk), but make the best use of the time you have, keep focused, be persistent, find the right people to share your workload with.

ljk 11y ago

> Focus on preparing yourself for a leadership role and an independent future as someone who's entry-level, what's the best way to "prepare for leadership role"? thanks!

leap_ahead 11y ago
This is a complex question and not the one I can answer in five minutes. But I'll give you some pointers. 1) Focus on broadening your skill set, not deepening it. If you like some tool and wish to explore it to the depth, that's fine, but do not stay there for a decade. Learn a full stack. Get things done from start to finish single-handedly. Several times over. 2) Adopt a certain mental state and attitude. Consider your job just a temporary assignment, an instrument for you to acquire valuable skills and meet important people. Know it can end at at any time, so can the next job, such that you will just be buying your time until your ship comes. Don't become a slacker though, do your job well, just don't expect it to secure your future till the retirement. 3) Adopt a critical view of the things. Get to form your own opinion and view on a variety of matters. Don't take anything for granted, check and verify things, try to guess problems and prepare for them so that they don't catch you by surprise. Learn to be in control. The trick is not to overdo it and not to start doing it too soon before you have acquired sufficient experience, otherwise your run the risk of turning into an arrogant all-knowing jerk impossible to work with. Be careful here. 4) Actively look for opportunities to try things on your own, be it taking a charge of a small project, helping a customer or building your own thing. Learn to feel being "one against the entire world". Don't let it scare you but instead excite you. 5) Invest in social skills just as much as you invest in technical proficiency. From a certain point of your professional growth your work becomes more social than technical. Learn to communicate well with various people. There is more to it of course but this should get you started. I'll add to this post if anything else crosses my mind.
- ljk 11y ago
  that's very helpful, thanks!
Bahamut 11y ago
The two best summaries I can think of are care about your co-workers professionally and care about your craft. Just about anything else can be derived from this in how you act.