Developer Career Advice: Start Before You’re Ready

The most successful people in the world all have something in common. They jump into projects, ventures, relationships before they know everything.

A Renaissance Man

In the early 1480s, Leonardo da Vinci was still a young man. He had not yet painted The Last Supper or the Mona Lisa. Indeed, he was a young man with some skills, generous curiosity, and the courage to start before he was ready.

Wanting to leave his native city of Florence and make a name for himself, Leonardo sent a letter to Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan asking for a job.

Interestingly, Leonardo did not ask to be a painter or sculptor in the royal court. Instead, he proposed doing a job that he had no experience in — military design.

He promised impressive achievements:

1. I have plans for very light, strong and easily portable bridges with which to pursue and, on some occasions, flee the enemy, and others, sturdy and indestructible either by fire or in battle, easy and convenient to lift and place in position. Also means of burning and destroying those of the enemy.

2. I know how, in the course of the siege of a terrain, to remove water from the moats and how to make an infinite number of bridges, mantlets and scaling ladders and…