My best career move by far, was to take a chance (and waaaaay less pay) and work for a bootstrapped startup. That being said, I do realize that YMMV. All startups are not created equal, so there are always many risks and it may not be for everyone. In my case, I was very lucky. I worked hard for very smart (and very generous) people. I’ve had a couple of different startup experiences.
When you’re young and inexperienced it can be challenging to vet those opportunities, but it’s important to try and measure the talents and experience of who you’re working for in that environment if you’re going to take the risk. It’s more about the people involved, and you can learn a lot, even from a business venture that ultimately doesn’t make it. In fact, some would probably argue that you learn more from the failures. Of course you have to be engaged and in it for the learning experience, too. I’ve always been pretty lucky to have really awesome mentors throughout my career, but I do seek them out.
The startup experience was invaluable. It gave me a very well-rounded business aptitude that can be hard to get in a larger company. I met wonderful people with superb business minds and have maintained great friendships with most. It paid off financially — not only directly from the startup, but I’ve been able to leverage that knowledge for the longer term, too.
I think having great business sense is important. I can’t even overstate how profoundly important that entrepreneurial knowledge has been to my career, regardless of my role, and regardless of whether or not I’m working for someone else, or doing my own thing. Unless I’m just coding for fun, I’m really part of a larger business context, so understanding that context and how my role contributes to its success has been great for my career.
Also, learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable — pushing past my boundaries and comfort zones in order to grow — has always been time well spent.
Don’t be afraid to commit…to go all in. Others have mentioned specialization, and I agree. I think that fear of commitment can be a roadblock to specialization. I’ve had a Sr. Engineer tell me that they’d rather hire someone who had deep knowledge and experience in any language/framework, even if it’s not in the same language/framework they use, than someone with a broad range of shallow experiences. So, I think having some deeper profound commitments in my past has also served me well.
Don’t be afraid to “try things on”, so to speak. I started my career in accounting (what?! haha), then moved to sales/marketing, and now here I am coding! :-)
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My best career move by far, was to take a chance (and waaaaay less pay) and work for a bootstrapped startup. That being said, I do realize that YMMV. All startups are not created equal, so there are always many risks and it may not be for everyone. In my case, I was very lucky. I worked hard for very smart (and very generous) people. I’ve had a couple of different startup experiences.
When you’re young and inexperienced it can be challenging to vet those opportunities, but it’s important to try and measure the talents and experience of who you’re working for in that environment if you’re going to take the risk. It’s more about the people involved, and you can learn a lot, even from a business venture that ultimately doesn’t make it. In fact, some would probably argue that you learn more from the failures. Of course you have to be engaged and in it for the learning experience, too. I’ve always been pretty lucky to have really awesome mentors throughout my career, but I do seek them out.
The startup experience was invaluable. It gave me a very well-rounded business aptitude that can be hard to get in a larger company. I met wonderful people with superb business minds and have maintained great friendships with most. It paid off financially — not only directly from the startup, but I’ve been able to leverage that knowledge for the longer term, too.
I think having great business sense is important. I can’t even overstate how profoundly important that entrepreneurial knowledge has been to my career, regardless of my role, and regardless of whether or not I’m working for someone else, or doing my own thing. Unless I’m just coding for fun, I’m really part of a larger business context, so understanding that context and how my role contributes to its success has been great for my career.
Also, learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable — pushing past my boundaries and comfort zones in order to grow — has always been time well spent.
Don’t be afraid to commit…to go all in. Others have mentioned specialization, and I agree. I think that fear of commitment can be a roadblock to specialization. I’ve had a Sr. Engineer tell me that they’d rather hire someone who had deep knowledge and experience in any language/framework, even if it’s not in the same language/framework they use, than someone with a broad range of shallow experiences. So, I think having some deeper profound commitments in my past has also served me well.
Don’t be afraid to “try things on”, so to speak. I started my career in accounting (what?! haha), then moved to sales/marketing, and now here I am coding! :-)