Five lessons from working in tech

After working at Jigsaw XYZ for nearly four years, across three different roles, I want to reflect on what I’ve learnt so far, both at the company and in the tech sector more generally.

Starting out in tech

When I first started looking for an engineering role in London, I was just finishing a four-month coding boot camp, alongside writing a thesis for a Master’s in Belgium. Naive about what I wanted to do with my career, I took the first job I was offered. I didn’t give it much thought; all I knew was that I wanted to get work experience in the sector. It didn’t matter where — I just wanted to get started on something real.

My initial engineering experience at Jigsaw was building rapid prototypes for clients. Because of the size of the rapid prototyping team at the time (me and one other person), I was learning both the back-end and front-end stack, as well as getting involved in making product decisions.

After about a year, I moved to a proper development team, writing back-end production grade code for clients. I also began learning about design patterns and the intricacies of making architectural decisions.

Moving into consulting

After some time, I started doubting whether engineering was something that I wanted to continue in. I had learnt a lot, but I was getting exposure to other roles at Jigsaw, and I started looking for other roles in the company that I thought I would feel passionate about.

I had worked as an engineer for about two years before I moved to a role in the consulting team. I wouldn’t say my understanding of how consulting worked and what it involved was anywhere near complete, but I wanted to try something new and challenging.

Back to building products

After a year spent learning about stakeholder management and the ins and outs of managing tech delivery teams, I wanted to get involved in smaller development teams and product delivery again. A product position came up and I began my first Product Lead role — delivering a home services product for one of Jigsaw’s biggest clients.

This turned out to be an ideal move for me as I was able to combine the skills I had picked up working with the consulting team with my knowledge of engineering, and I was back building real products.

Based on my experiences, there are five valuable lessons I’ve learnt over the last four years. These won’t apply to everyone starting in the tech industry, but, with hindsight, knowing them would have really helped me going into my first job.

1. The skills you learn early in your career are transferable, no matter the role you’re doing

Wherever you’re working in a business, you’ll pick up soft skills that will serve you well for the future: organisational skills, time management, leadership and working with different colleagues and stakeholders. These are skills that can be used and built on across all roles in a business.

Similarly, getting exposure to different people and situations can be more important than what you’re doing day to day. You quickly learn to pick up new information and run with it by getting involved across different areas of a business and taking on new knowledge from them.

2. Engineering knowledge is a real advantage in any role in the tech industry,

Having engineering knowledge is a real bonus if you’re working in tech, whether you’re working in sales, product management, or elsewhere. This might seem obvious, but it can be a real boost for a number of reasons:

• It legitimises your contributions in technical conversations
• It gives you a much better understanding of what’s technically feasible
• And, (most importantly), you’ll be speaking the same language as your engineering team

3. Find a company that cares about and invests in your growth and learning

This is something I’ve learnt from working at a company that prioritises investing in personal growth and progression. If you’re interviewing for a position in tech, it’s definitely worth finding out how the company encourages its employees to grow and learn.

4. The people you work with will have as much impact on your career as your role

This one is simple: the people you work with will shape your professional self and your career as much as the role you’re actually doing.

5. Don’t try to progress too quickly

I’ve always been driven, and because of that, I’m always looking for more responsibility to take on. But I’ve learnt over the years that it’s important to focus on the present, instead of always looking out for the next stepping stone.

Taking the time to get invested in projects and relationships and learning from others around me has given me the experience to build to those points of progression. And it’s important to be able to make mistakes and grow from them. Ultimately, I now understand the importance of taking the time to learn and grow horizontally at the beginning of your career.

I’ve learnt a lot during the last four years at Jigsaw. Working across several different areas of the company, I gained a thorough knowledge of how the business and tech sector works. I’m glad now to be close to the thing that Jigsaw does best — building the best products we can.