The 5 Biggest Lessons I Learned Climbing the Ladder in Tech

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Debt will find you

This is a very important lesson from the finance world. Early in my career, I was under the impression that if I had a tighter deadline, I could just work for more hours in the weeks before the milestone and make it and then continue as normal after the deadline. When I was in my startup days we had this huge launch event where there would have been a lot of press for the unveiling of the product. All that sleep deprivation and stress took its toll. But if you look at the outcome it was worth it. Not all debt is bad and you should leverage it, but you need to be fully aware of the impact.

166 reads

Perception is reality

It took some time until I finally understood it. My teams were handling a critical project that was on a hard timeline. One day I had a chat with my manager about this and I asked for advice because I failed to understand where all of the sentiment was coming from. Advertisement At that point I understood what needed to be done and that I was not setting my teams up for long-term success. And just like that, things drastically improved.

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Choose asymmetric opportunities

This really made a big difference early in my career. I remember when I needed to decide between staying with my jr. software engineering job at a big company or joining a risky hardware startup and becoming their first employee. A lot of my friends were surprised that I went for a risky startup, but for me, I chose an asymmetric opportunity that had manageable downside and unlimited upside. You have stumbled upon an asymmetrical risk opportunity that can accelerate your career.

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You can't ride the wave forever

This is an oversight I have seen a lot of people making that ends up hurting their careers. You need to pay careful attention because everything has a due date. Every time your stakeholders, manager, job changes or enough time passes by, you need to prove your worth again. You have to make sure you are filling and surpassing those expectations. Going through two acquisitions this was the biggest learning that has helped me continue to nurture my career.

116 reads

You are solely responsible for your career

As a manager, I say that with the best intentions possible. One of the most important things is to not shy away from career conversations. In my first job, I was an engineer and I wanted to experiment with a leadership role in the future. After the discussion, my manager said perfect, when an opportunity comes I know you will want to give it a shot. I thought it was far-fetched but a couple of weeks later it happened. If there is a career ladder, you can reverse engineer it and figure out what skills you need to develop.

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IDEAS CURATED BY

Chinmay Anand

@chinmay_anand

I think therefore I am.

CURATOR'S NOTE

Throughout his (Daniel Rizea) journey of rapid growth, I learned many valuable lessons. Some were taught by mentors, while others were found in books — but the majority of my knowledge came from learning from mistakes.

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