A P(AI)rate's life ????for me
Now This ????
I remember very clearly when I got my first “corporate” gig, I remember the feeling of it, the fear and excitement I was feeling, the validation that came with it, I had been an aspiring developer for a while, I started out in 2016-2017 with a self owned design shop turned code shop.
I was a pirate that would sail around in his very own little boat, it was a small and humble ship but still it felt like a pirate ship for me, it had a black sail, that served as a canvas for a white skull with two tibias crossed behind it, no one telling what to do, never breaking even, disastrous, greasy, sticky boat and it was absolutely great. But also... it was sinking. Then a hand from out of nowhere, a helping hand that is, pulled me through the mist and offered me chance to go corporate (I would argue that knowing someone in the industry is probably the easiest way to get in). No more sailing the seas in search for bounties and small opportunities, rather a place among the crew of a man o'war, among the ranks of the queens navy or the kings guard. At least that’s how I thought of it, no more adventures in a little boat, but rather a piece of coordinated efforts to sail further and larger. That’s how it began, that's how I left my own project for another persons dream, now don't get me wrong, I was in bad financial state, it was the beginning of the pandemic and really there were few alternatives for me.
I first joined a 200 head company that was thriving among the pandemic, it was a rare finding, we ourselves, people working on the code shop weren’t so lucky, water was getting in faster than we could bucket it out, and we were no titanic, there wasn’t event place for a band to play!, so we were for sure not going to go down signing, more like kicking and scratching. At the time I had two business partners to whom I gave the mushroom kingdom ???? keys and left to go get that job that would heal my personal finance ??. That in turn saved shop, I was able to pay my debt, instead of putting it on top of the company, it gave them a clean start.
It was very validating to actually get into an industry and have someone say: "ok, we think you're actually good enough to work here" I was missing that since I never worked as an Industrial Designer and although I had been working on development for about 3 years by then I had no industry validation whatsoever, all the projects that had been sold by my code shop at that point were small and maybe one or two medium sized, so getting hired felt good (bittersweet tbqh), I remember not even negotiating the offer, I just said yes and started working.
That was 3 years ago and I'm still navigating the industry, I eventually came back to my business and picked it up where I had left, (less business partners this time. I guess, touching the subject as little as possible, that somehow my absence after founding it was felt too much, I was the natural cheerleader of the project that was dancing on a double discourse working for another company and that gave the wrong message to whoever believed in me through the project...). And I'm still working at it, consulting, managing, coding when needed, recruiting, wearing a lot of hats as owners usually do.
When I came back I realized of all the things I was learning, all of the things I was noticing on the business side, noting the innumerable amount of things I was doing wrong but also a couple of things we were doing right, just by paying attention and asking questions, obviously questions needed to understand the business side of what we were programming as a team but also out of sheer curiosity having had a small business myself, again discovering coincidences, even at that scale, hundreds of employees vs a couple.
I've juggled having a corporate gig and a small consultancy ever since, it has been challenging and it has given me a lot of perspective on various levels of managing, executing, planning, financing, etc. If anything after 7 years in the industry and a consultancy on the side I'm only realizing all of the things I don't know. Ha! you weren't expecting that sentence to end like that probably.
Truth of it is: I won't try to stand here promoting I know it all cause I've been jumping around a lot of hats and roles, if anything I feel like my mind has expanded enough to see that it's mostly empty jajaja. I have no advice from this, I've been "hustling" for all these years, with two, three or more projects at a time and only thing I would tell myself from that time is: "maybe you should've just waited and should've focused on what was in front of you". Now if I had a Time Machine would I go back in time and tell myself all of these? nah, hardships along the way have thought me and made me, for sure and perhaps doing twice the work in half the time facing that many projects has given me perspective and knowledge, along with anxiety, depression and confusion (about what am I supposed to do, also AI and the general pandemonium it's caused doesn't help for sure).
But I have been able to observe certain things, mostly how cultures differ at those levels of revenue (probably that would be the most accurate way of telling a company from another, even across industries). And really thinking of it, it really boils down to the amount of meetings I was attending where my presence wasn't necessary, wow to write it down feels weird, but it's true, most of the meetings I was attending when in a big company could've been an email, and this was particularly true for me as I always had something else to do, I became a sort of a robot fixed on opening PR's for either fixing bugs or adding a feature. I tried to do it differently for a while though I tried to pitch an excellence in engineering repo or wiki in the last two or three orgs I've been and although received with enthusiasm at first, they quickly diluted in everyday's work. And see, that's one of the things I realize I wasn't doing, I wasn't giving my mind space to think of all of the things that I could push to improve in a company and really, at all levels or revenue: XS, S, SM, L and XL I've seen a lot of eagerness but very few or fragile systems to encourage employees to push any kind of improvement or growth ideas and then if they got any wind, they would quickly faded away. Now of course that's on me too, I didn't have enough mental space and time to do the politics necessary I wasn't setting meetings and evangelizing this projects. After two or three attempts at different companies I now mostly tend to catching bugs and implementing features. Now sure I haven't been at any FAAAAAAAANG company, those maybe have better mechanisms. Also as a disclaimer I've been only a remote worker so far, maybe in person all of this doesn't even make sense.
And really it's not a criticism like: "you're doing it all wrong, you X sized company should do it like this cause I say so", like we've been making aircrafts for decades now and you still see a ship burning to the ground occasionally, it's bound to happen much more with this imposed remote culture which antagonizes also decades of working at the office and in reality we're still figuring out most of it. This train of thought it's just a realization I have of "well, I'm in this meeting and I'm really not saying anything, and I could just read the notes afterwards" kind of thing, and also not trying to be low-key backseat driving, we at the code shop had this very same struggle, we were sent to remote work and haven't looked back since, we're trying to surf ????♂? it the best we can but it's natural that as we play with the more meetings less meetings dimmer, we're still trying to find a sweet spot. And still these other companies make money and ship software, which I also believe will still happen, now even more as we get super powers with AI and copilots and stuff which in my opinion leads us to the Jevon paradox where if something is cheaper to make (software for example), then the demand will increase and not be reduced ( I do realize the paradox is related mainly to cost, however demand is at stake here I guess, and cost too hum ??). There will be a lot more software made for sure, which will in turn relegate and retire a lot more software so, so I don't see Software developers going anywhere soon, but I guess we'll see.
So, as far as these thoughts go, I realize that a: "I'll just do the job" mentality probably won't get you up too high independent of company's size, won't make you critical to the operation, but speaking up might, having a strong opinion might, starting but not pushing initiatives won't as I've seen. Along other things that I might try later.
Politics will be directly proportional to company's size, and being able to focus on one company and doing more promises more for sure, and then there is the don't pour yourself into work, I've tried to read as much as possible about coding an language nuances, I've tried to master the algorithms, the data structures, the foundations, the basics of everything and after all these years I only realize how ignorant I remain, which in turn also makes me realize how seniority really should work or works, I remember fighting for the title: "Senior engineer" after 2 or 3 years programming and now I don't see how I could've earned below the 10 year mark, it would just be fooling myself, but I wanted ahead I wanted to establish authority and really, that is established through other means, maybe, if you know how let me know!
On the other hand, focusing on one thing in this industry is a hard gamble, layoffs sound familiar? and the lessons we've learned, friends and family came to help, not your "family" from work, not your boss, although he might have, not your coworkers, your friends and family, so again to me to realize that it's a marathon and not a sprint, really leaves me craving more family and loved ones time, that's important, not how many tickets you finished.
And then opening up my own code shop oh man!, I was so young and knew even less than I do now!, which is crazy! to say the least but, we've learned the hard way, and we stand by our knowledge and the amazing people that now is part of the project, but still we realize there is a lot to be learned and a lot to still go on. I've heard that a company is like a child and a 7 years old company can for sure start running but probably not compete at the olympics, we'll try to get there if we last long enough. ????♂?????♀???
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing ???
Socrates ( of course, who else)
From that sentence on, Socrates goes on to say that he thinks he's intelligent because he realizes how little he really knows, in this time and age that would've probably pass as humble bragging amirite?
You'll be surprised to learn that this entire issue was created by a Human Interface known as Luis (hi there! ??) which leads the score as follows:?
Luis - 7
chatGPT3/4 - 0
Now before you leave, let me tell you about some other projects I have in store just for you ??
That's all I got for now, pennies for thoughts and again thanks if you read! reach out for your well deserved beer. Also if you're writing about something and want someone to read about, don't hesitate to ask, I mean you've endured this so it's only fair. Till next time!