How to Value Your Technical Work. Other ways to measure its value than by…
By: Deepti Kannapan
Tags: Creative Writing, Productivity, Journaling, Programming, Mathematics

How to Value Your Technical Work

Other ways to measure its value than by how many people use it.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

In my last year of college, I did an internship at an electric car company. I spent a few months collecting speed and torque data from their motor testbed and fitting the data to a mathematical model. A few weeks before leaving, I ventured into prototyping hardware to modify the vehicle. I rushed to get as much done as possible before I had to return to campus.

My mentor at the company, V, and I walked toward the office entrance, discussing all the tasks there were to do. “We’re nearly done,” I said, tightly.

“So how do you think you did?” V asked, suppressing a smile.

I picked up the hint that he thought I’d done well, at least for an intern. “I think I will have done well if this next stage goes well,” I said.

V nodded amiably.

When I returned to campus, I’d learned a lot about motors and prototyping, and my presentation about my internship got me the top grade. V had sent my professors glowing feedback about me. And yet, my recollection of those eight months was laced with bitter disappointment for years.

This was my chance to improve electric car efficiencies and …solve climate change! And I couldn’t work fast enough to make a prototype they could actually use, so it had all been for nothing.

I valued my technical work by its impact

I would never have considered admitting to anyone that I had such high hopes for my internship. Wanting to make a difference was a dark, embarrassing secret.

And yet, I saw every class project or piece of code I wrote as my shot to make something that would land in the hands of millions, change their lives forever, and alter the course of history.

When it didn’t, I looked back on the time I’d spent creating it as wasted. Enjoyable and challenging, but ultimately fruitless. I took all that disappointment and channeled it into my drive for the next project.

And so the stakes and pressure rose with every new attempt.

Creative writing changed my perspective

A few years out of college, I work at an engineering job, and my work is gradually growing in impact. There are real users and consequences for the models and algorithms I create. But I’m always impatient for more. More readers for my academic papers, more users for my code, and bigger impact projects.

Recently, I’ve started writing creatively in my spare time. I’ve been writing short stories, essays, diary entries, and a novel.

At the end of a writing session, I flip back on pages covered in spidery ink with pride. No one has read them yet. Maybe, one day, I will.

I carefully catalog and link all my essays in spreadsheets. They will be great fodder for editing practice.

I value every moment I spend writing, whether anyone has read them or not. In them, I see potential. I see clarity. I see evidence of a creative habit that improves my thinking.

Photo by C M on Unsplash

Collecting a few years’-worth of code

On one occasion, a coworker asked me to collect some code functions I’d written for a specific experiment and document them, so I could share them with the team to use.

I winced as I pulled up the folder with my functions, expecting a mess of unusable code. I half-intended to rewrite them because I was sure that there would be nothing there worth salvaging.

Instead, with a few days’ work, I was able to clean the functions up, make a user-interface that made each of them easy to access, and create some basic documentation for a new user.

That was the first time that I viscerally understood that all the time I’d spent writing the functions was valuable. That all the thinking, learning of new interfaces, choosing architectures, testing with hardware, debugging and data entry hadn’t just been yet another failed attempt to make a useful product.

I’d made something I would use. I’d made order, clarity, and potential.

I’d never been prouder of any code than the functions that turned out to be comprehensible and usable years after I wrote them, now hidden behind a shiny user interface.

Maybe I’m my customer

Now I look at every piece of code I write as a function I could call later. A library of tools that can make my future analysis easier.

A building block in the massive collection of functions, knowledge, experiences, and concepts I’m accumulating, to make bigger, better, and more impactful projects in the future.

I’m starting to collect my math notes the way I collect my journals, neatly written instead of scribbled and tossed under my desk because they were ‘wrong’ or didn’t go anywhere. Maybe I can index the ‘right’ parts instead, so I can find them, like I do with diary entries.

Maybe every hour I spend learning new mathematical techniques is valuable, because I enjoyed it and because the knowledge will help me in future projects.

Here’s the workbook I use for researching and selecting sustainable products.

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