Finding your motivation working in tech
Tags: motivation
Published: 2020-07-06 19:22:53

![do it for her](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/lrencikiznm03wu8i5qo.png)

This post was triggered after a conversation I had with a friend; In this conversation we were talking about their goals and upon struggling a bit I asked: *“What’s your motivation to work in tech?”*. It might have been very direct, but after a few minutes of brainstorm we came to some good conclusions and I thought of writing about this.

## What is motivation?

Google defines it as: *“the general desire or willingness of someone to do something”*. I think this definition lands very well with me since in my tech career as a software engineer, motivation has been my flag to keep on writing good code, having interesting technical discussions, mentoring others and in general having a good attitude about my career.

For me, some of the motivations to work for tech were:

- **The money**: Because you have less stress if you can easily put food in your table and take care of your dependents. Plus the once in a while “treat yourself” that comes easy with it.
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- **The flexibility**: I knew long before coming to work in tech how the work culture was very flexible; Work at your own pace, no one cares about 9-5, just deliver things. I wanted some of that and to be able to spend more time with my family.
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- **The universality**: The ability of being an international individual and be able to work almost everywhere in the world and in virtually every industry.

These are *EASY* motivations; These are the motivations that probably everyone that works in tech have seen at some point. Unfortunately having all of the above does not automatically translate of you being happy in tech; Sometimes even with all these perks you don’t find yourself motivated about your job. I’m not saying completely non-performant at your job but it’s that feeling where you are not doing the best job you know you can do.

I’ve felt like that many times and I can attribute that feeling to certain specific situations. Instead of looking at the negatives, let me elaborate on some positive actions you can do to find some motivation:

## Find the work you want to do

Have you felt you can’t get that project or idea out of your head and you rush to keep on thinking/working on it? Well, that seems like something YOU like to do! It’s like Christmas morning where you are so excited that you can’t sleep and want to wake up as soon as possible to open the gifts. I’ve found myself feeling this for certain projects or an idea I want to develop and those things are often the best work I’ve produced.

Certainly, in real life you can’t always get only the work you want to do. Sometimes you will get work that you find boring; Not in line with your thinking and with the label: *“it has to be done”*. I think you should put up with it temporarily, get it done and have a plan to go work in the things you love. Aim for working on what you love 70-80% of your time and have a buffer of 30%-20% for *“Running the Business”*.

## Find the right leaders / managers

Leadership / Management does ultimately affect your overall happiness at work. Unless you are working for yourself, in a big company you will have someone you ultimately report to. I know you don’t always have the means to choose your leaders/managers but if you can, try to find people that will listen to you and understand your motivation; People that can treat you like a human and not like another cog in the machine.

Bonus points if this person is someone you admire or you have seen a good track record from them. Once you get someone like this, really having a leader/manager is a different dynamic than the normal management style where you are just handed tasks to do on a sprint. It’s more of a discussion on what are the things you want to do for the team / organization and how are you going to be achieving those. Management like this motivates you, walks with you when you need to and sprints when there’s an opportunity; They will highlight your work and it will be a nice thing. Hang onto this type of management as long as you can.

## Quick wins

I am a person that learns by *“Action and Reaction”*; Maybe this is why I became a UI Engineer; I like to see things drawn in the screen and I want to see them fast. I’ve found myself struggling to keep motivation when I go purely theoretical, when I feel I don’t deliver value quickly and I don’t see a means to an end. I think it’s just human nature to strive for some advancement and some sort of signal that we are going on the right direction.

When you get a large piece of work try to split it or if you are in charge of a project try to deliver something quick that you can iterate on; more often than not you will receive good feedback based on *“something”* rather than *“nothing”*. You can build from there.

## Define clear objectives and results

This goes in hand with the previous point where you will achieve something quick and you will see a reaction of your actions; Fight the ambiguity of things, fight it hard. Letting something be too ambiguous will lead to multiple paths and you either having to explore all of them or you doing nothing because of lack of direction.

Define what you can and want to do in order to get general consensus and get started. This in turn will result in some sort of vision of what you are doing which will help you as a north star and light at the end of the tunnel so you can keep motivated.

## Motivate others

This is more of a meta advice but If you find your motivation and you are happy at your work, share this motivation with others. You can be as subtle or direct as you want but try to encourage others; Sometimes people just need a little nudge in the right direction to do great things, I want you  to be the instrument to do that. This is my case with me writing articles and starting a podcast with a friend; Always wanted to do it but I had doubts, there were words of encouragement and some good 1:1’s that made me do the jump and well, here I am… hopefully motivating you as well.