Voice of the DBA

The short answer is of course, most of us can learn and improve our skills to become better developers, engineers, DBAs, etc. While we might not be able to become the 10x engineer that many aspire to be, we can certainly become a better employee inside of an organization.

There’s a piece on becoming a more effective engineer, which is actually titled know how your org works. It a piece from an engineer that started with a tweet: The text was:You can either complain and pontificate on Twitter on how the tech industry *should* ideally work, or you can learn how your org *really* works and what’s rewarded, and optimize for that. Or quit and find another job. This might sound cynical – but it’s what it is.

That sounds a little harsh, but the reality of how your org works or is structured or interacts is a reality. We all have hindsight to look back and wish someone (including us) had written code better. We might be sure if we could change one thing, or add/remove someone else, or make some other change, then things would be better. We might feel that there is a simple solution. Those things might be true, but they aren’t the reality of the situation.

Learning to be more effective an engineer in your situation does involve learning to work within the reality of your position in your organization. You need to learn to work well with others, to understand what needs to be completed from the perspective of you and your group, and what the organization places importance on getting done. That last one might not be what the organization expresses, as there can be a big disconnect between words and actions.

You also need to learn how to deal with uncertainty. Often when we build applications, we don’t have all the information, and we can’t get it. We can’t necessarily count on everyone we work with to have the same shared understanding or work at the same pace. We have to learn what levels of trust we can extend, work within ambiguity and be prepared to change our plans in response to how things work.

In other words, most organizations have a lot of chaos and to become a better engineer you must learn to navigate the chaos and still get the things done that others notice.

The piece has a section that soft skills are hard skills, which is true. When I see people who are very effective engineers, they can be the brilliant, 10x engineer, but that’s rare. Usually it’s the engineers that have strong soft skills in both working with others and understanding the power hierarchy in the organization that succeed.

Of course, some organizations are full of bureaucracy, favoritism, and disfunction that it’s hard for anyone to become effective. It’s amazing these places continue to exist, but they do. I’ve been in a few and I’ve left as soon as possible, which is my advice to you. Don’t work in a dysfunctional environment. If you can avoid it. If you can’t, then work to leave.

Effectiveness is part being better at coding (or tuning or admin or whatever), but it’s also part learning to work well with the rest of the organization.

Steve Jones

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