Looking to Silicon Valley as the best place to start a tech career, I always have to consider the amount of money that’s available to people. Other industries — energy, health care, food production — require much more capital to start a company. Also, I find that if you want to make a difference, you have to come up with a business idea that’s unique and a bit different. Imagine if you can earn some equity by being part of the founding team of a start-up that has the potential to explode and take off in a big way, like perhaps a new casino!!
If you’re a developer, it’s more straightforward because you have to come up with an app idea that works, but it’s easier for a designer to imagine and design an amazing interface for something. A designer can use other designers, or maybe a design agency, to help them bring the idea to life.
But most people who are running tech companies these days are still looking for employees with specific skills, and getting a good night’s sleep is an essential part of the work itself.
It’s hard to say how satisfied people are with their jobs because we get so much job offers. We get around 12,000 a week. But the people I work with love what they do, and I know it’s because they love what they do. The work is interesting and meaningful, and the team has a lot of passion. It’s easy to find a reason to be happy.
Tech workers are what I like to call “pedal to the metal” people. They take great pride in a job well done, and nothing gives them more pleasure than seeing their products hit the market and transform lives. They’re the type of people who are happy to work seven days a week, all year round.
The downside? This environment isn’t exactly sustainable.
When you’re younger, you don’t realise what a long term commitment is. Even if you do know, it might not get you ready for the realities of the workplace. I didn’t realise how I was going to get through the burnout. We all can’t be resilient, and we need to stop and remind ourselves of that.
The four major components of their workday — design, operations, development, and sales — require engineers to learn as much about as many different skills as they can in order to excel, but all of them can take a toll.
There’s the need for quantity, but when it comes to quality, I’m not as worried. When we’re working on something, we try to keep that in mind. But it’s not always possible. I think if you’re concerned about quality, you need to be more strategic and conscious of when and why you make a certain mistake.
The real key to helping us find our happy balance is an awareness of how tech workers are being perceived. On the one hand, they have to be aware of how they’re perceived by others and the decisions they make. On the other, they need to understand that people are watching them closely, and they must be cognizant of their behaviour.