Why treating your Career as a Business is Essential

As a tech professional, my journey to a Solution Architect, Career Coach, Trainer and Mentor has been filled with challenges. This article is not just a recount of my personal experiences but an invitation to explore how I discovered the secret to a successful career in this field: treating it as your own business.

I remember my early days in the software industry, when I took the easy road and accepted the first opportunity that came my way, without analyzing whether it was truly the right path for me. It was a time when technical skills received all the attention, and the human aspects were often overshadowed by lines of code.

This article not only documents this personal journey but also illustrates how I evolved and discovered that developing human skills is just as crucial as honing technical competencies. Here, I share the lessons learned from my own failures and successes, highlighting that viewing your career as your own business can be the catalyst for profound transformation.

This personal experience has not only transformed how I manage my career but also how I have become a staunch advocate for the idea that a successful career in technology largely depends on a holistic approach to professional development. So, let's explore together how to turn your career into a captivating story and how this perspective can redefine your entire professional journey.

The Entrepreneurial Mindset: Beyond Code

As programmers, we often find ourselves immersed in lines of code, debugging, and optimizing apps. However, our journey needs to be more than just syntax and algorithms. This is why I believe that an entrepreneurial mindset can be beneficial—a blend of resourcefulness, innovation, and confidence.

Engineers are natural problem solvers. We successfully overcome challenges, seeking answers even when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The "can-do" spirit drives us to explore new approaches, take calculated risks, and create innovative solutions. And we do this successfully; the tech industry is on a continuous growth and change trajectory. Technologies evolve, frameworks shift, and expertise becomes obsolete within a few years. Yet, when it comes to our careers, we tend to be quite conservative and resistant to change, often settling into roles or organizations that do not suit us, staying stuck for years. Alternatively, there's the job-hopping scenario, where we jump from one company to another after just six months, hoping to find something better or more fulfilling.

Many times, what we are searching for is within us, but we don't know how to see it, and we don't allow ourselves to realize it.

But if we are already doing this, how about bringing a different kind of value to the place we are in by changing our perspective?

• Why do we do what we do?
• How can we do things better?
• What new ideas can we bring to the table?

Entrepreneurship extends beyond code and fixed thinking about how to do a certain task. Companies are looking for diverse talents—marketing experts, project managers, data scientists, or researchers. I never imagined I would need to know about marketing, sales, competitive analysis, or business development. It would have been helpful to know in advance at least what each of these entails. It doesn't make sense to limit ourselves to a narrow role or the poetry of the Job Description.

That document has its purpose, but if we don't go beyond it, how can we grow and explore?

When you answer these three questions, I want you to consider which voice within you is answering.

Is it the voice of a healthy adult who analyzes, knows, and prioritizes their needs, and reflects on them?

Is it the voice of a helpless or angry child who is unable to make a decision or take action?

Or is it the voice of a critical parent who believes nothing is ever good enough and always finds something negative?

An entrepreneur innovates, challenges the status quo, and creates value. This is true for any role we take on—programmer, QA, DevOps, Data Scientist, Manager, etc. We shape the future, so why not shape it according to our values?

• How does our code affect the organization’s goals? What value does it deliver?

It’s beneficial to cultivate a business mindset to concretely measure our efforts and prioritize them according to their importance.

If our work contributes to the development of society and we find fulfilment beyond financial rewards, can we say it aligns with our purpose? This is in the hope that each of us has a well-defined purpose in life.

Initiative: Rising Above Mediocrity

Throughout our careers, we are offered relatively few new opportunities from the outside. Often, we find ourselves complaining that we don’t resonate with the project we’re working on, the technology being used, or the team we’re part of.

Wouldn't it be better to create our own opportunities? To volunteer for difficult problems where no one else dares to go, to go beyond the minimum required.

• What if we consistently deliver faster and with higher quality than what people expect from us? What if others could always rely on us?

In business, these are basic qualities and a guarantee that clients will return to us. Wouldn’t a collaborative mindset like this be useful to us?

Do you think it would make a difference when the next wave of layoffs is dictated by HQ? Maybe yes, maybe no. But regardless of what happens, we know that we have done everything within our control, and surely an opportunity will arise from someone who has worked with us.

Continuous Learning: Entrepreneurs Stay Curious

From the moment I decided to transition from being an employee to becoming an entrepreneur, I discovered how much I didn’t know. I used to be proud of my ability to program in multiple languages, design solution architectures, work with cloud technologies, databases, code optimization, and more.

None of these skills were as useful to me in the same way anymore. Therefore, I had no choice but to start continuously developing my abilities, exploring new tools, staying up-to-date with industry changes and market trends, and investing in courses, books, and mentors to guide me.

Learning shouldn’t be a one-time event, like “I went to college and now I don't need to learn anything else for the rest of my life” or “I took a course and now I know about emotional intelligence.” It doesn’t work that way.

Not to mention that you can't get everything you need for life from college, and professionally even less so. It's just a foundation. Often, it’s the foundation for knowing where to look and where to deepen the necessary concepts.

Technology evolves at a fantastic pace, and maintaining relevance within a company and in the market requires continuous improvement. It's essential to invest time in learning new technologies, frameworks, and methodologies, as well as obtaining certifications that help build experience and knowledge.

But what about human skills? The ones related to interacting with others? The ones that involve our internal mechanisms for dealing with less fortunate or more stressful situations?

The skills needed to make ourselves heard, convey information, mentor new colleagues, conduct a demo session for a client team, negotiate the best terms for team growth, or extend a project estimate?

My first experience about 16 years ago in the role of Team Lead was incredibly stressful. I managed to burn out after just six months. Of course, I had no idea what that meant at the time, but I knew I was working over 12 hours a day, constantly stressed, feeling like I wasn’t doing anything right, and all this affected my health and relationships with those around me. I had no energy left for anything else.

This happened because I was completely unprepared for that role—I didn’t have the necessary skills, nor did I have moral support. I wouldn’t even have known which skills I needed to handle that role better. I just knew I didn't feel well, and at the first opportunity, I fled that environment.

Knowing how to code was not enough for the situations I faced. It helped me only to a small extent. After 20 years of experience and a degree in Psychology, I now understand what would have helped me back then.

First and foremost, communication. Effective communication bridges gaps, fosters collaboration, and drives projects forward. Whether explaining complex concepts to stakeholders or collaborating with cross-functional teams, clear communication is essential.

Who do you think will have more credibility when discussing with investors or clients? Someone who has both communication and technical skills or just someone with technical skills?

Who will be invited as a speaker on a technical topic at a conference?

Of course, we don't learn this at technical universities, where the focus is on accurately presenting a theorem, an algorithm, or a problem solution, and everything communicated is exact.

What about storytelling? Methods to attract and maintain attention? Voice modulation, fluent expression, or improvisation?

These don't fall under computer science or engineering, but they shouldn't be reserved only for those studying Journalism, Acting, or Law. We all need them, and in entrepreneurship even more so. Therefore, I had to learn them.

However, communication without Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is diminished and lacks credibility. Without EQ, we can't convey emotion, authenticity, or empathy. Everything remains transactional, as I experienced in many teams I worked with. Emotional intelligence is about the ability to understand and regulate emotions—both our own and those of others. It allows us to navigate sometimes challenging workplace dynamics, manage conflicts, and build quality relationships. It's an essential skill, in my opinion (and shared by others like Daniel Goleman, Simon Sinek, Gary Vaynerchuk, etc.), for management roles, as well as for teamwork and client interactions.

Similarly, resilience should be a part of everyone's skill set. It's the ability to recover from stressful events or periods, self-motivate, maintain well-being, persevere, and not be defeated by initial failures. Until I studied these concepts in depth and underwent personal transformation, I didn't feel I mastered them, as they are the hardest to acquire. It's not something we learn and know from the next day. It's a continuous struggle with ourselves because they form the foundation of our mindset and everything we do or want to do, professionally or personally. It's how we respond and relate to everything in our lives: purpose, plans, tasks, behaviors, relationships, failures, victories, perseverance, giving up, or taking risks.

The Art of Networking and Personal Branding

Some of you might have heard the phrase, "Your Network Is Your Net Worth." There’s even a book by Porter Gale on this topic. The relationships we build and the connections we make can have a direct impact on our financial success and overall well-being.

Initially, it was believed that these advantages were reserved for those in C-level management, graduates of top universities in the United States and the UK (Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cambridge, etc.), and members of influential organizations. Nowadays, there’s a growing emphasis on intentionally building relationships to create similar environments for development.

When you're an entrepreneur, you are compelled to network. You can't stay isolated if you want to grow your business and business relationships. This is because B2B essentially means Human2Human; businesses don’t interact with each other—people who own or are part of those businesses do, to create a mutually beneficial exchange. I didn't know these things until I had to network out of necessity. However, everything I learned can be applied just as effectively when we are employees, benefiting not only the company we work for but, more importantly, ourselves.

Entrepreneurs attend conferences and meetings on various topics. Similarly, IT professionals should actively build and maintain the connections they create. By attending technical conferences, participating in forums and industry groups, and interacting with colleagues, you can enhance your network. Networking isn't just about job hunting; it’s about exchanging knowledge, mentorship, and collaboration. Working with professionals from diverse fields and engaging in informal conversations at conferences can spark innovative solutions or lead to interesting collaborations.

All this done intentionally, appearing on a stage or supporting events builds our Personal Brand and Reputation. Entrepreneurs understand the power of branding. But as an IT professional, our reputation matters too. Consistently delivering quality work, meeting deadlines and being reliable. Our reputation precedes us, influencing job opportunities and collaborations.

What else can you do to support personal brand growth?

By sharing your own opinions and knowledge, through blog posts, social networking, LinkedIn, X, Discord groups or other communities, contributing to open-source projects, interacting with the IT community and other activities.

Long-term benefits

In conclusion, we are our own business, whether we are entrepreneurs, solopreneurs or employees, and it is ideal to behave as such. Adapting an entrepreneurial mindset and treating your career as your own business can only bring long-term benefits. But just like entrepreneurship, it takes vision, planning, constant and sustained effort, investment of time and money in growing skills, making strategic connections, adapting to change, building a personal brand and intentional growth.

Career or professional life is our own business. Investing in it combines technical expertise with soft, human skills. Each of us is the CEO of our own journey, and we will have to behave as such. A CEO must make firm, sometimes difficult, decisions to defend the interests of the business. He or she does not expect other employees or customers to decide his or her path or long-term goals. We alone are directly accountable for the results we deliver: financial, role, visibility, skills.

And beyond wages, we need to consider the impact we have now and in the future.

How will our code impact other people's lives and the communities we live in?

How will our innovations build other industries?

How do the people who work with us feel in our presence?

What will colleagues, family, and others say about us when we leave the room?

Because regardless of the role we are currently in, we all create possibilities.