Tech is always growing, which means you are always behind.
You will break things. You will be expected to fix things you don’t fully understand yet. That never really goes away, you just get more comfortable with it.
My general belief is that everything has to get done eventually, so I’d rather do it now and make future-me happy. That approach works well until it really doesn’t.
At one point I was completing a 70-hour ISO 27001 compliance project, managing four office moves, and submitting two university assignments, all in the same two weeks. I got through it. Probably won’t be doing that again.
The good news is my memory of it has mostly faded so it’s basically like it never happened.
The hardest personal challenge was moving into management. I wasn’t keen on it. When you’ve spent years only being accountable for your own work, suddenly being responsible for a team’s performance is a big shift.
What I eventually realised is that I didn’t actually dislike management. I disliked the disruption to my routine. After a few weeks I’d forgotten what my previous routine even looked like. Now when something changes I just accept there will be a short adjustment period and then it passes.
That’s worked well for me.
There will be moments where it feels like it’s easier for the people around you.
Maybe they grew up building computers, maybe they don’t have a period that wipes them out with fatigue once a month, maybe the dress code feels like an extra task on top of everything else. I wear the same five black beanies in rotation and a Casio watch, getting dressed is not something I spend energy on, and I found a company where that’s completely fine.
Some companies will have different expectations, that’s useful information, it tells you whether you fit there or not.
If you feel like you’re not smart enough, you’re probably just new, there’s a difference. If you feel like you don’t fit in with the team, you don’t have to share their interests, just be yourself consistently and the right people will respect that. If you feel like a fraud, most people do at some point, the ones who don’t are usually not paying enough attention.
Hard work won’t always be rewarded where you are, but it will never fail you.