That feeling of being thrown in, watched, and quietly judged. It’s all too real. The line “If you’re not shaping the narrative, someone else is” gave me chills. Thank you for sharing something so raw and honest.
Yes honestly , these are the few hardest truths in fact i have been through in my stints with the companies as well . definitely shakes the confidence .
The sad thing about tech companies is that in order to strive in them u need to be somewhat of a politician, Many times i find people with no experience or knowledge and very weak engineering skills climbing the career ladder just because they treat work and the company as Congress
Taha, pardon me probably this is an intrusion. I wonder, what was the stretch work? Working with Curtis itself or was there a challenging work that Curtis benefitted from your expertise? In my experience, the glory goes to one that is higher in hierarchy and it may not be even political since that maybe a norm at that work place.
Stretch work is what I am not used to working. Driving a cross-organizational feature and shaping the requirements. Previously, I was only on the receiving end. This one required many non-technical skills that I lacked.
Can I say the quiet part? At least for me, I’ve seen one too many stories of toxic behaviors from PMs. Or maybe it’s not toxic in that world, but it does feel different to most engineering cultures.
Is it more about learning to navigate that environment?
That’s exactly what it is. We haven’t learned how to communicate with society awareness. I stayed away from it intentionally with absolute grit that I won’t play politics and my smarts are enough.
When I changed that mindset, everything became better.
Thoughtful post, equal parts gripping and gut-wrenching to read. It captures something so many of us face early in our careers but rarely talk about, the silent politics of visibility, power, and how easy it is to get played when you're still figuring out the rules.
I'd be curious to read more about handling Yahoo's CEO pushing for faster delivery. I haven't found a way to do that for our team without feeling like I'm pushing for arbitrary deadlines and forcing compromises on quality unnecessarily.
That feeling of being thrown in, watched, and quietly judged. It’s all too real. The line “If you’re not shaping the narrative, someone else is” gave me chills. Thank you for sharing something so raw and honest.
That means a lot. “Thrown in, watched, and quietly judged” is exactly how it felt, and worse, I didn’t have language for it at the time.
Yes honestly , these are the few hardest truths in fact i have been through in my stints with the companies as well . definitely shakes the confidence .
It does shake you and naming it is the first step to taking your confidence back.
Glad this resonated.
Cliffhanger 😭😅
Glad you enjoyed reading part 1.
The sad thing about tech companies is that in order to strive in them u need to be somewhat of a politician, Many times i find people with no experience or knowledge and very weak engineering skills climbing the career ladder just because they treat work and the company as Congress
I read every line and could paint a picture of the story. Thank you for sharing your corporate experience.
Thank you for reading it. I’m glad it resonated.
Taha, pardon me probably this is an intrusion. I wonder, what was the stretch work? Working with Curtis itself or was there a challenging work that Curtis benefitted from your expertise? In my experience, the glory goes to one that is higher in hierarchy and it may not be even political since that maybe a norm at that work place.
Stretch work is what I am not used to working. Driving a cross-organizational feature and shaping the requirements. Previously, I was only on the receiving end. This one required many non-technical skills that I lacked.
Unfortunately backstabbing is common. I also noticed kindness prevails and have been inspired by it.
Can I say the quiet part? At least for me, I’ve seen one too many stories of toxic behaviors from PMs. Or maybe it’s not toxic in that world, but it does feel different to most engineering cultures.
Is it more about learning to navigate that environment?
That’s exactly what it is. We haven’t learned how to communicate with society awareness. I stayed away from it intentionally with absolute grit that I won’t play politics and my smarts are enough.
When I changed that mindset, everything became better.
Thoughtful post, equal parts gripping and gut-wrenching to read. It captures something so many of us face early in our careers but rarely talk about, the silent politics of visibility, power, and how easy it is to get played when you're still figuring out the rules.
I'd be curious to read more about handling Yahoo's CEO pushing for faster delivery. I haven't found a way to do that for our team without feeling like I'm pushing for arbitrary deadlines and forcing compromises on quality unnecessarily.
Great writting! The image may be a bit graphic though.
I really like you art of writing - very engaging and keeps the audience glued to the context.
Thank you for the kind words.
Very well Penned Taha. Can relate to it totally
Glad it resonated, Dwarak.