Hard-Learned Experiences from the Software Industry
By: Supratim Samanta
Tags: Software Engineering, Life Lessons, Respect, Workplace, Experience

It’s been more than 11 years in my career in the IT industry. I have worked in different teams of different sizes and of different geography. I have had experience in different culture and with people.

Working in different situations I have realized some useful tricks which has helped me navigate the software industry smoothly so far. These realizations are not material ones. I have found usefulness of these in every places.

Photo by Martin Péchy from Pexels

Here in this post I want to share those factors or learnings with all of you. Maybe you are already aware of these, or may be not. May be you agree to them, may be not. Regardless, here they are:

You are always replaceable

Over the year I have been in several situations, where I have been the lead of a work and I knew, if I leave, things will be out of place and there will be chaos. I will not lie, I have used some of these situations for my benefits. But when I left, I have observed, things did not got cats and dogs. Someone replaced me and people have carried on.

Nothing stops just because someone valuable leaves the team. Everyone is replaceable.

This is also true for those poor people, who have been carrying on day to day activities in the team and have gotten lazy and gotten used to it. May be you are higher up in the ladder, but you never know, when things will be crazy.

There is always someone who can do better than you

This is in contrast with the above one. You never know, from where the next big idea will come. May be the the person sitting by your side can do better than you.

No matter what you are doing and how well you are doing, don’t get cocky, be mindful and have compassion.

In my experience, I have seen people managing a project for long time and when new people joins the team, the already managing team gets scared and do stupid things. They will not share documentation or knowledge. Sometimes that is out of being afraid that he/she may be replaced, but most of the time, I have seen the old team do not give the new team members the respect they deserve, because they cannot believe the fact, the new member can have some ideas.

When getting too much respect at workplace, it’s time to move

This one, I may get yelled at, but please let me explain.

I think this because, when you are getting too much respect, it will be mostly because you are there in the team for a long time and you have experience. You have gotten lazy and used to it.

People show respect because you are providing for them and they are getting value out of you. May be it’s a good paying job, but think about it, you are not growing.

You are not learning, it’s the same stuff again and again and you have already mastered it. In this ever changing industry, molding yourself to the new stuff every now and then is very much necessary if you really want to survive long.

Till the point when you feel underpaid, you are growing and learning

This one may bring up lot of criticism or different thoughts, but I have realized, when :

I have invested time in learning new things and enriched myself, I have felt undervalued.

I have gotten lazy and got used to the work I am doing, I haven’t felt what am I doing here, or being not paid properly.

This 2 things have helped me in my journey as a flag, when I am being lazy.

There is no end to learning, don’t afraid to change

This is kind of obvious. Software Industry is the industry where things change every seconds. Things I have learned 1 year back are literally obsolete. We should always be prepared to change and mold ourselves to the situations, we are in.

Jack of all, master of some.

I think this is the best approach. Have some as your niche and learn everything, you don’t know, when opportunity arrives.