An Engineer's Halloween Story

Halloween is almost upon us so I thought I would get the horror show started with a few scary tales of my own. Well, maybe not “make your heart stop scary” but more of the “make you lose some sleep” variety. So as we prepare to celebrate the day of horrors, I wanted to share some of the scarier decisions I faced in my engineering career and reflect on the choices I made.

Joining a startup. Almost four years into my first job at Oracle, I was approached by an early-stage startup, with an offer to hire me as their second engineer. A part of me was excited about going to a place where I would have to put on so many hats and learn so many new things. But another part of me was terrified at the prospect of leaving the steady comforts of a big company for the ragged adventures of a startup. And the choice was made even harder by the fact that I was still on a temporary work visa at the time. It was a hard decision, but in the end, I took the job, and I’m forever grateful for all the learnings and the incredible growth that this once-scary opportunity afforded me. And the whole visa thing worked itself out too. So no regrets on this one.

Changing teams. In my early days at LinkedIn, I had my occasional ups and downs as I struggled to find my bearings in a new job. Some of it was simply the growing pains of a young company and some of it was a certain lack of direction and conviction on my part. While I was going through the motions, I was offered a new opportunity with another team in the company. My first thought was that a fresh start would just mean more struggles trying to settle in. In the end, my fear prevailed and I ended up turning the offer down. Fast forward to six years later and my time with this team has been the most rewarding period in my professional journey so far.   Again, no regrets but let's come back to this one later.

Becoming a manager. For a long time, I was convinced that management was mainly for engineers who could no longer handle the rigors of coding. When the opportunity to go into management first came up, I was deeply conflicted. I was terrified by the notion that I was walking away from the hands-on engineering that in my mind, made engineers what they are. Would I be forfeiting my identity as an engineer? It took years to overcome that fear, but I eventually gave in, and five years in, it has been an incredibly rewarding journey as an engineer in leadership. In fact, I can confidently say that my only regret to this day remains that I did not take the leap a little sooner.

In the end, all the decisions I made were informed by my appetite for risk at the time. And my fear was the very manifestation of my low risk tolerance and a distorted reminder of why the downside always outweighed the upside. If we let our fear control us, we will always pursue the path of least resistance and pass on the adventures that are far more likely to lead to step function growth. So even as I contemplate how my decision to stay put with my team ended well for me, I still can’t help to sometimes ask myself “what if?” So let us make sure that our fear is merely a voice of reason in the risks we take and not a self-inflicted bogeyman always standing between us and our dreams. 

Happy Halloween!

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