How to find purpose in the everyday when you’re early in career
Or, “My rollercoaster Year One as an engineer: how I tried to stay busy and feel fulfilled when I felt lost and unmotivated at work”
I graduated from college on June 17, 2017 and started my full-time software engineer job literally a month after, on July 17. While proud and happy for my accomplishments, my dad was concerned that I was diving into my career too soon after graduation.
“You have the rest of your life to go to work. You should enjoy your youth. See the world first before dedicating yourself to the everyday of work.”
But I was beyond eager to start working. So much so, that the month between graduation and work orientation was actually almost painful. (I’m not a very patient person.) I just couldn’t wait to live my life as a software engineer.
It’s been a year and a few months since then, and so much has happened — my stress and productivity levels hit all-time high’s and low’s, and my desire to go to work rose and fell with them.
I thought the first couple of months at work would be the worst because that’s when I knew the least, but the days didn’t seem to improve even past my 6-month mark. I felt like I was just reacting to my environment (answering emails and attending meetings I could barely follow) rather than expanding my skills while adding value.
This isn’t to say I had nothing to do or that my manager didn’t look after me. I was always added to meetings and assigned to supporting roles so I can learn and take part in some small way, but it didn’t feel fulfilling. It also didn’t help that I was in a space (eCommerce/subscription billing and lifecycle management) I knew less than nothing about.
I felt really lost.
There were many days when I would wake up and immediately bribe myself with a Starbucks Frappuccino — “If I get up now, I’ll have time to beat the 237 traffic and get a Venti green tea frappe before my 9:30am” — and even more days when I took long lunches because I knew I had nothing better to do instead.
I was so down on myself that even getting kudos from coworkers felt undeserved. I thought they were giving me adulation for small tasks because they were scared I’d follow the millennial trend of jumping ship after a year, constantly searching for a better culture and/or pay.
To be honest with you, I sincerely thought about switching companies. At my worst, I even thought about switching industries. Maybe this isn’t actually right for me. Maybe I’m not actually cut out for this.
But I don’t stay on that train of thought for too long — I can’t. I always end up with the same conclusion and realization that there is nothing else I’d rather do than work in tech.
So I sat myself down and dumped thoughts and feelings on sticky notes (a habit I picked up from design thinking with Design for America).
I started with one sentence:
I’m unhappy at work.
On the next sticky note, I went one level deeper:
Why am I unhappy at work?
I don’t feel motivated or fully utilized.
I kept going deeper like this for several rounds. I asked myself “why is that?” and gave a brief explanation for what I wrote on the previous sticky note.
When I thought that I got to the root of my problems — “This isn’t what I thought work would be like”— I started on a new set of questions.
What do I want to do? Contribute to the team and add value.
What can I contribute? A fresh perspective.
How can I give a fresh perspective? By understanding what’s going on and designing the solution in my own way.
How can I understand what’s going on? Pay attention in meetings and ask the questions. Treat work like a class.
To be honest with you, when I finished writing that sticky note, I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders. The lightbulb that turned on was both ridiculous and profound:
I hated work because I missed school.
Don’t get me wrong. I love not having deadlines and midterms, and I especially love not cramming massive bits of information onto tiny note card “cheat sheets.” But I do miss the camaraderie at the library at 11:45pm: when the library staff flicker the lights to passive-aggressively tell students to pack-up and cram elsewhere, and the students groan collectively and unplug MacBooks and Lenovo ThinkPads.
I definitely miss the clear indication of how I was performing.
If I skipped too many lectures, it showed in my homework scores. If I didn’t study enough, it showed in exam results. But, if I did give my classes the time and energy they deserved (and not just at the last-minute, right before the midterm), I always knocked it out of the park.
My work lacked that rigor of measure. (Quarterly performance reviews were done away with a few years before I joined.)
My managers didn’t have a rubric and never micromanaged. While they certainly had expectations, they were very flexible on how and when I accomplished them. My coworkers were (and are) great collaborators, but they only had positive feedback even when I felt like I was barely putting in any effort.
It felt like I wasn’t really adding value because it didn’t matter whether I was giving it my best or just slapping something together at the last minute. I was always going to get that “Good job!”
I became passive. I passed time by answering emails and responding to the needs of others, waiting (writing this part really scares me) for validation.
It took me almost a year to realize how problematic this was. I had been too insecure to see the value that my coworkers and leadership team praised me for.
My sticky notes didn’t reveal anything new that I had to do: I was already doing it. The past year might have felt like a passive reaction to what was going on around me, but I’ve actually been paying attention. I now know an uncomfortable amount about subscription lifecycle management, and it’s because I have been asking those questions.
I’m constantly mulling over why we do things the way we do and why This way and not That. I’ve been thinking about billing and provisioning subscriptions so much that they’ve made their way into my dreams and idle thoughts. At this point, I feel like I can pinpoint the exact line number where a specific attribute can be found in a response payload.
The past year shouldn’t have felt as unfulfilling as it did.
In reality, I’m filled to the brim with knowledge I didn’t have before, about a domain I didn’t even know existed a year ago. I’ve been soaking up the information my team has been giving me.
I’m contributing in my own way — as a young engineer, eager to become one and always striving to be better than yesterday.
Honestly, I only meant for that first part to be a short introduction. My true intention was to share the list below, but I got carried away and shared quite a lot about my first year at work. (I had planned to write a separate post in the future, which I still want to do.)
Since that sticky note activity, I’ve tried to be more purposeful and present at work. I recognized the good that I’ve done and compiled a list of my best practices below, in the hopes that my experiences and advise would be helpful to someone who feels as lost as I did (and sometimes still do).
So, without further ado:
(1) Ask questions.
If there is anything at all that you take away from this article, I hope that it’s this: be curious and ask questions. My first manager told me to always pull the “New Grad” card whenever I was in trouble — “Sorry, I joined recently so I don’t know the answer to that question. Let me get back to you on that.” Or, “Hi, I’m new here, could I get 10 or 15 minutes of your time? I want to know more about X-Y-Z.”
I didn’t understand the power of that card until I started to use it. I unabashedly declared myself as the recent graduate and asked question after question, even asking them to repeat themselves multiple times until I was satisfied with my understanding.
It’s truly amazing how willing others are to share knowledge with you, and how much they will try to bring concepts down to a level that you can relate to. So don’t be afraid you’ll embarrass yourself or seem silly — you’re new! If you were expected to already know all of the domain knowledge, you wouldn’t be considered early-in-career. You’re essentially a child in this domain, so cut yourself some slack. No one expects babies to hit the ground running.
(2) Treat meetings like you would treat your classes as a pre-med student during your first year at college.
This one is highly specific and slightly satirical, but you get my drift.
(Actually, the main reason I phrased it this way is because I wanted to differentiate my usual behavior in lecture — physically there but not mentally — and instead emulate someone who cares a lot about doing well.)
This isn’t to say that you should take painstakingly detailed or BuJo/studyblr-worthy notes. My main point is that you should care: pay attention to what is being said and jot down your thoughts and questions. After the meeting, do your best to walk and talk with someone (preferably the person that spoke a lot or presented at the meeting) and ask them about the words or concepts you didn’t understand.
It’s surprising to me how much I was able to glean from these very casual hallway talks. It’s also been a great way for me to break the ice and establish a relationship with that person, making it even easier to ask them questions in the future.
(3) Share your thoughts.
When I was in school, I always regretted not answering the questions the teachers posed to the class because I always ended up being right. The same applies to when you’re early-in-career.
You’re seeing everything for the first time, and you have opinions. Share them! If you’re at a medium- or large-sized company, you’re bound to be in a team filled with domain experts; a few of them might have even been a working professional before you were born. Never let that experience gap fool you into thinking that you can’t suggest something to them.
There is a reason you were placed in your team. There was a need and a recruiter filled that spot with you. Believe in that placement and openly share your ideas with your team. No one wants you to fail. I’ve found out that it’s the exact opposite: everyone has always been eager to give me compliments and positive feedback because they were excited for my contributions. Though small and usually not the right approach (mostly because I didn’t fully grasp the problem/industry), my ideas were always heard.
Why? Because I was new. Because I have the potential to point something out that could have been staring them right in the face, but they’ve just been too deeply involved in it to realize.
So take a deep breath, fake some courage if you need to, and share your ideas with someone. Who knows? That little thought could be the next big thing your team pursues.
I knew that transitioning from college to work was going to be journey, but I never thought that it would be this windy and foggy.
There are still times when I feel like I’m losing the battle to my insecurities, but they happen less often. Overall, I feel better about work. My low’s no longer feel like steep cliffs off of my best days, and my all-time high’s are slowly being replaced by new personal records.
I still miss how easy it was to know how well I was doing based on my GPA, but I definitely do not miss how I associated my self-worth against it.
It’s weird to admit, but I’m still on the hunt for ways to measure myself at work. I know that the better alternative is to not feel the need to be measured or compared, but it’s ingrained in me deeply. I want to be better than who I was yesterday. I want to always be on an upward trajectory. I’ll just have to find a different way to measure that height without being scared of falling from it if I failed.
