Hacking the “I feel foolish” feeling

What I learnt at my new job.

I am feeling lucky

The Interview

Prior to my current assignment, I worked for technology services MNC. I left my job to work with a product-based cloud company.

One of the development managers reached out to me on LinkedIn to discuss about exciting things that people work with. I was game for a chat and slowly the multiple chat sessions evolved into a 7-round something. I am terming these : “chat sessions” because none of these actually involved me walking into my prospective workplace with the folder of degree certificates , resume ( though I was ready to produce a hosted version ) in a formal suit.
Let me make this clear. The interview (“chat sessions”) was one of the most challenging experiences I had ever had — inclusive of programming rounds. Finally after a 7-round ordeal I got hired.

The work

I joined the development team as a Build engineer. Surprisingly, that’s a small part of my daily work. That is what makes working here so interesting. Everyday, I am in for a surprise!

I started with Performance engineering which warmed me up with a high level overview of one of the critical Java applications, then I went on to work as a Django developer for another critical application. And finally, I started writing and maintaining build scripts — starting with the Django app and the one I mentioned prior to that. Now I do all 3 on a regular basis, sometimes concurrently. Everyday I juggle Python, Shell scripting, build scripts and performance analysis data !

Each of the above tasks require me to jump into something which is new to me — not necessarily entirely new because I had worked with some similar technology in the past or maybe because I had worked with one of them in some of my hobby/open-source projects.

Just when I feel like an expert at what I am doing — something new comes up which makes me feel ridiculously foolish for about an hour or maybe all day. Then after some intense reading up, self-learning, trials and errors , I feel like a scientist who’s made a breakthrough!

What I learnt

• Be humble about what you know and appreciative about what others know — makes it easier to ask questions.
• Practise self-teaching/learning : We all have a bucket-list of things we want to learn like learning a musical instrument — try teaching yourself using resources from the internet.
• Don’t wait to “get” the work you’d love to do. Ask for it, propose a new idea or start your own hobby project.

“ There’s nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer. ”.

• Work for free during weekends if it involves something you believe in. There’s nothing cool about calling that un-professional.
• Not everyone in the world works for the brand name. Some dedicate their lives in building a new one.
• If your work doesn’t make you feel foolish every now and then — you are missing out the on the ‘education’.
• Work with people who are way better than you — in terms of experience and knowledge. Learning literally gets fast-forwarded.

Never settle down. Don’t spend too long working with something you are very comfortable with — Empty your cup frequently so that you get to pour new ideas.