You probably don't care enough

The essence of culture is not what is visible on the surface but what moves underneath and silently shapes our actions and reactions.- Chat GPT"

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 :))

This last 1.5 months have been a crazy roller coaster ride for me personally, I have learned so much stuff which I would have easily dismissed a long time ago,

Let's try to project those into words today,

[1] You should care more

At this point I have had many instances in my life personally which has led me to believe that

It is very important to be a part of culture where attention to details and excellence is a bare minimum criteria to build something that will have an impact.

You should always be giving your best output irrespective of the constraints. In an environment where you are working with people who are more ambitious compared to you it becomes a bare minimum expectation.

It takes a great effort to build a habit where you actively start paying attention to small details and start noticing the mediocrity of your work.

For a very long time I kept dismissing this idea, labelling this as a skill issue where infect it might be a skill issue but is more of an attitude + habit problem. You personally don't want to work at a place where people are not actively trying to produce their best output to the best of their abilities.

I love this projection of The Bear episode 7 by Thorsten,

And I’d tell them: because this is the job, man, this is it. You’re working for one of the best software companies in the world, with some of the best software engineers in the world, building software for the other great software companies in the world — this is it. This is the NBA of programming and I need you to show up to practice every day and if you don’t want to do that, then you shouldn’t be playing here.

Do I care that much about typos in comments? No, but what I do care about is people respecting the opportunity they have and doing their job properly.

He highlights that you have been given an opportunity to work at a place where there is a high concentration of ambitious people which in itself is a luck and it is absolutely important to do your job properly and in a way that is expected from you.

Part of being an engineer is being able to solve real world problems through code, whether it may be solving deployment issues in aws, css issues or copy changes in the application.

People do notice when there is a sense of care projected into a product and it is very important to build a culture where that is set as the baseline expectation.

[2] Being around ambitious people is a luck

You are probably very lucky if you get to work with people who are ambitious enough to build something that actually matters.

Parker Conrad here talks about what I am trying to project in my blog,

Nobody comes to work at a company thinking that they are going to be here until they die, it's a social agreement that you make with a small group of very talented and ambitious folks on what you want to accomplish as a part of that group.

This aligns with Thiel's ideology in Zero to One

The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that's hidden from the outside. A great company is a conspiracy to change the world; when you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator.

There are some basic factors that needs to be taken into consideration when you decide to work with people who are ambitious and care enough to accomplish something hard.

When you decide to work on a problem statement that is difficult by it's nature, you have made the conscious decision to ignore certain aspects of life such as,

• Work Life Balance
• Being okay doing boring Work
• Shorter Deadlines
• High pressure environments

All of these things are a baseline expectation that you have to internalise before choosing this life.

[3] Chasing Excellence is difficult

Cultivate an allergy to average - Kevin Kelly

Most people usually don't set a high enough standard for themselves, the true differentiating factor between a great craftsman and a good craftsman is a higher personal standard + curiosity

Be good at your craft

Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone correctly projects expectation setting and caring for excellence here.

You want to be in a culture where there is an expectation of excellence from you, it may be a difficult at the start but after working for almost 1.5 years, I have realised that it is very essential.

[4] You have to be comfortable being dumb

Especially as a junior, it can be very daunting to ask good questions. Something I realised recently is that one of the reasons senior people are good at asking questions is that they already know the shape of their expertise.

This is why an environment where it’s ok to ask stupid questions is important. One of the best ways I’ve seen of dealing with this is having a #dumbquestions channel on Slack. Another is having the Good Senior People ask seemingly simple questions in meetings to empower others.

In any field, the beginners who are hungry enough to ask foolish questions are the one's who make the learning experience great for other people, educating them with the basics through their questions.

One key differentiator, between people who have high clarity and people who don't is the quality of questions they ask,

smart people have a habit of gaining clarity by asking very good questions and it's not something that only smart people can do, It's a habit that you have to learn.

Having the right clarity with proper communication skills is probably one of my most underrated learnings of this year.

You have to be in an environment where you continuously learn from those around you, failure to do that is something that you should actively think about.

Most people are not comfortable saying I don't know and you should be in an environment where it is okay to not know about something, what is not okay, is you not knowing about something that you have executed, you need to always have the answer on why you did something the way you did.

[5] What is your job as an engineer?

You have to really define what engineering means to you.

Being an engineer is not only about building things that sound cool or look cool, sure there is an intellectual satisfaction associated with building things that are hard to build or something that you have never built but

It is also about solving problems for people through the tools that have been given to you,

Interface Problems ⊂ Technical Problems

Solving problems does not necessarily mean complex engineering implementations it also means fixing small stuff which might either be an interface or implementation.

We rely on plumbers to address plumbing issues of all sizes, whether they are major leaks or minor drips. Similarly, in engineering, it's essential to address both large-scale technical challenges and smaller interface or implementation issues to ensure a smooth user experience and efficient functioning of systems or products.

When I think about being an engineer, I think about someone who provides convenience through code.

Conclusion

I've been reflecting on areas where I have room to grow, and I'm excited to start my super saiyan training.