Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
matthewgrohman.substack.com
Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
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Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
#2Learn the role you want, not the role you are in. If you want to be a manger, then yeah learn how to manage and talk to the different roles you need to interact with as a manager. If you want to code in a basement with no need to talk to other roles then become an expert on some software engineering domain so that you can get more technical roles.
Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
#3Bonus points if you take a one or two year detour to do another function. Let your org know it isn't meant to be a one way trip and you are doing it to gain perspective to make in an easier sell.
Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
#4Some of the things I've been most recognised for in my career have been very technically unsophisticated. They rely on the intersection between the technical understanding of the system and the business understanding. The customer understanding or technical understanding required is not very high, so it's the kind of thing I could do as an engineer with a decent customer purpose understanding, or a sufficiently empowered higher tier tech support person could do if they had the time to read our internal user documentation rather than be pressured for ticket close time, or a sufficiently technical sales person who could use our BI tools. It doesn't require deep knowledge of JVM internals or years of customer facing interactions, but if you're totally siloed in one area you wouldn't solve it.
Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
#5I would put it even more simply: just knowing Engineering isn't enough if you want to excel past a certain point, unless you're going to go extremely deep and become a subject matter expert in something (storage, hardware, etc). That is something most people are not going to do, because it requires dedication and to be extremely intelligent.
Instead, you can go very far by understanding a job one "hop" from your own - sales, marketing, finance, you name it. People who can understand the domain and translate that into code are worth 10x more than people who need to be told what to do and have it spelled out to them. If you haven't actually had butt-in-seat time understanding that domain, you probably know less of it than you think you do as well.
I see plenty of people who assume they could do the job of a sales engineer, marketer, whatever. I'm confident that many people are smart enough to do so, but having the capability does not mean having the knowledge to do a job well. Learn that knowledge.
Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
#6Try to understand business first and what's your role in it.
Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
#7How about learning about other roles instead of consuming content? Seems faster and more efficient.
Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
#8The PowerShell Podcast had Doug Finke on back in mid February of this year, he made a great point at the end of the discussion.
Don't be afraid to drive in another lane. Take the opportunity when you see it.
In a previous life, I had a management who told me to, "stay in my lane" and this led to a series of events where I ultimately left. Anybody who tries to keep you down or limit you ability to learn and think needs to be avoided. Those who foster this type of growth need to be held close.
Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
#9I would put it even more simply: just knowing Engineering isn't enough if you want to excel past a certain point, unless you're going to go extremely deep and become a subject matter expert in something (storage, hardware, etc). That is something most people are not going to do, because it requires dedication and to be extremely intelligent. Instead, you can go very far by understanding a job one "hop" from your own…
So how much more is someone “worth” who can understand the different parts than someone who made their career knowing how to play the promotion/leetCode/system design/behavioral interview game at any of the large tech companies and position themselves to show “scope” and “impact” by getting on the prime projects?
It’s a much more straightforward path and one I would recommend to anyone starting their career today.
I didn’t take that path. But seeing people who did have it much easier. No I’m not complaining. I’m good with where I am
Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
#10How about learning about other roles instead of consuming content? Seems faster and more efficient.
These things don’t seem orthogonal to me - to learn, one must consume some kind of content.