Breaking Code to Building Myself : Six learnings after a year @ corporate
As I celebrate my first work anniversary at Google, I find myself reflecting on this journey and looking back at the lessons learned. This year has been a whirlwind of experiences, filled with exponential growth and lots of fun. One of the highlights has undoubtedly been the people I’ve met and lost along the way. This year helped me grow personally and professionally in ways I never anticipated (or even wanted). This has been a year of firsts, including the unforgettable experience of breaking code in prod 😛
Someone recently asked me, “What excites you the most about working at Google?”. My answer was a no brainer. The impact. When you deploy code and see the graphs rise up with the sheer number of users engaging with a feature YOU built, it is incredibly rewarding. Of course, the culture and people are huge factors as well. The people at Google are amazing! I have met folks that go above and beyond to help others. Maybe because they are excited about technology but majorly because they are awesome. It’s amazing to be a part of this exciting community with infectious passion for science and technology.
I am constantly inspired by how people here are always looking for ways to grow. Not necessarily in a competitive-drag-you-down sort of way, but in a I-love-technology-what’s-next way. People have this shared passion for technology and a hunger to discover what’s next. My top learning is to always look for opportunities to grow and contribute — in tech and non-tech. This year, I hosted an event which was wayy out of my comfort zone. I have always been a person with crazy stage fright and now, the task of presenting my work to a big group does not seem like a I’ll-just-take-a-sick-leave kind of idea.
Plan. Execute. Achieve — learning #2. Earlier I was just focusing on tasks at hand without any goal to improve any particular skill. With help of mentors, I started setting goals for each quarter. This helped me quantify my growth and track my progress instead of aimlessly completing tickets.
This brings to learning #3 — personal board of directors. A personal board of directors could be your group of people that you can reach out to discuss any difficult situation. These people can be from varying aspects of life that give you fresh perspectives and help you see the bigger picture. I found turning to a friend or mentor in a difficult situation equips me to deal in a better way. I often look at a situation with bias or exaggerate it in my head. My personal board of directors are people that inspire, motivate, and empower me — people I can rely on, even at my lowest. These people tell me what I need to hear instead of what I want to hear.
#4 Embrace the corporate chaos. I learned the hard way that there is a false sense of emergency in corporate. As an anxious perfectionist, I used to panic because of timeline (pseudo) pressure. After a while, I learned to understand the actual deadlines. This came from setting estimates beforehand so that I can pushback when someone starts pushing for early deliverables.
It’s not bragging if it’s based on facts. #5 — Share your achievements. Visibility is an important aspect of corporate. Make sure important stakeholders know about your work. There are different ways to gain visibility, choose the one that is healthy, friendly, and empathetic.
During my internships, I was meticulous in documenting my work and keeping track of tech discussions. After joining full-time, I slacked off. Perhaps the drive for a return offer fueled my aggressive documentation during internship. This is a to-do for me — #6 Document your work. With multiple projects, you’re bound to slip on your contributions at work. Documenting contributions helps to ensure that you don’t overlook important achievements during performance review.
Before wrapping up this already longg article, I want to stress on how important it is to take care of your mental and physical wellbeing. Somewhere between coaching classes and coding contests, I lost sight of the value of taking breaks for myself. But regardless of where you are in your life, taking a break is not a waste of time. Step away from perfectionism and live life at 80 percent.
My first year at Google has been memorable, to say the least. Success and failures are going to come and go, but the memories, learnings, and connections will go a long way. This year, my greatest struggle was to pick up pieces of myself that I lost in the pursuit of career, and heal my inner child. In this seemingly cutthroat competitive world, try to be someone who is here to just enjoy the journey.
Thanks!
