— work — 2 min read
Hi,
I am Aman, and this safe space is where I am most raw with my thoughts, hop on if you'd like to interact with them :))
Talent is the skill to prove one’s own ability - Blue Lock
It's almost been a year since I joined Commenda to build the next set of compliance infrastructure that helps Indian founders take a bet on their optimism.
A lot has changed since then,
for starters my react skills have improved considerably, I guess the spend on expensive courses is finally showing it's magic xD
100 more courses till I pave my way to being a senior dev, especially now that we are in the server era ;)
Let's not divert guys,
In this past year I have learned a lot of things and If I were to start counting it here, this blog would prolly take a lot longer to publish, but there are definitely some things I want to project my 2 cents on,
It took a lot of effort to learn processes, especially in an environment where there were none.
The most challenging aspect of working at an early stage startup is figuring out which processes are good and makes us fast and which processes are stupid and can be eliminated,
growth and seniority are fancy things in life, sounds good, also has a nice ring to it, but the projection is a bit off, the evaluation is a bit illusive.
Being a good engineer and a good employee may not necessarily be the same thing,
It has very little to do with how many cleaner abstractions you can come up with or how many components you can reuse, don't get me wrong I love a good folder structure, but the most important is:
Looking for interdependencies while making a change
Clarity in thinking while building something (Just because you can build anything doesn't mean you should!)
Communicating expectations clearly
Prioritising good code over speed and working with the right kind of solutions, even if they are repetitive.
Now you might be amazing at all of these things but not me,
A year ago I absolutely sucked at each one of these things, It's funny how bad I was, and I wasn't necessarily measuring against this, my measurement with myself accounted for
Learning new patterns
Learning new approaches
Achieving technical depth
I personally am of the belief that,
Curiosity/Obsession with the problem statement ==== better focus and output
Challenging problem statements === better intellectual curiosity
I am not a "Javascript Developer".
Overall I have realised how to be contextually good at a particular skill which is very important in an early stage startup,
Talent is the skill to prove one’s own ability - Blue Lock
Not being able to do so is absolutely okay, as long as you are motivated enough to improve.
Few North Stars for future me
Optimise for curiosity and fun
Keep improving apart from your day job
Learn how to be contextually better
Loosely held strong opinions cost nothing, try be more wrong
After Interacting with so many awesome engineers, I have realised that one's evaluation can only be from a distinguished and unique set of work outputs, which in a way also differentiates us and sets us apart as engineers.