2024

January 2, 2024

I would like to start writing more in 2024 which is my way of saying “hey look, another engineering blog!”

I tend to:

work too much
internalize too much

This combination leads to an overabundance of thoughts that I should have talked about or gotten onto paper instead of leaving them to float around in my head.

One of my manager’s feedback items for me in 2023 was that I should work on communicating how I operate on a day-to-day basis because I perform at such a high level and that my perspective could be beneficial for others. This is certainly a blessing and a curse, especially given my ever-present impostor syndrome and desire to contribute at an infinitely increasing rate. If I let up, even to work on something like this blog, I feel as though I am not working on something valuable. The price of my performance is a very real mental toll and one of my goals in writing this blog is to alleviate that by admitting that maybe it’s okay to not do everything all of the time.

Over the past couple of years, my definition of “value” has slowly transformed into being how many PRs I can ship or review (i.e. how much code can I contribute). This definition drove much of my output in 2023 and this post is me acknowledging (somewhat reluctantly perhaps) that it is both unsustainable and one-dimensional which is something I have always wanted to avoid in my career.

This narrow definition is also not a boon for someone with Staff-plus aspirations. The irony here is that I try to be more well-rounded outside of work – read about different topics, maintain fairly unique hobbies, etc, but, when I am at work, I do everything in my power to hammer out code whenever possible (though I still work hard to support my team and the Engineering org as a whole).

This effort plays directly into point one from above – I work too much. Is it healthy to work sixty hours a week to maintain a prolific IC output while ensuring everyone else is unblocked? Probably not; this is a one-way path to burnout whether or not I really want to acknowledge it. Is there a balance where I can contribute autonomously in a valuable way and still help everyone else? Certainly; Staff-plus folks do it all of the time. One of the ways I can help others is by writing things like this blog so that I can have an outsized impact without needing to be omnipresent.

Now that I have provided some background by posting into the void, I’d like to move forward by attempting to document some of my thoughts while also becoming a little more well-rounded as a person and engineer.

Without further ado, here’s to 2024. 🎉