A Job Well Done
A job well done
Hello!
Welcome to another week. I hope you are well rested. I've been thinking lately about the shapes of leadership and the topic of today's issue.
How we perceive leadership characteristics is attractive in their alignment with our context. Some people execute their leadership in a way that's not as visible to all; some might not align with that.
But regardless of external perception, I keep thinking about intrinsically if I'm doing not only what I'm supposed to do but if I'm doing it well.
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I've been thinking about my job and how my roles are fulfilled. Not only in practical terms, this person fills this role, but also in the organizational sense of "who owns this thing," be it a process, artifacts, etc.
If you've been long enough in an organization, re-org, layoffs, etc., will affect the landscape, and some things will inevitably end up without an owner.
My internal dialogue was triggered first because of the end-of-year conversations for feedback. Still, also some introspection, wondering if I'm doing my job well or covering for "abandoned" areas,
What is my job?
As a staff engineer, this type of thing might have a vague shape. Your organization might have a ladder, and you can guide yourself through that. But in practice, Staff engineers are as diverse as there are organizations.
A guide I've been relying on has been the archetypes in the Staff Engineer book by Will Larson, which provide me a framework to talk with my manager and peers about how I'm conducting my role. (If you're wondering, I operate between Architect and Right Hand.)
Your company might have a ladder that says what your job is or some basis for "archetypes" of roles you can/should fulfill. Or you might base it on frameworks like Implementers, Solvers, Finders, or PSHE.
Why does it conflict with me if I do a good job?
After a certain level, you're on your own. You're given autonomy to choose your adventure and are trusted to make the right choices in terms of prioritization.
My internal conflict is my constant judgment of myself for failing to choose high-impact tasks or projects. I'm always wondering if I'm doing a good job or even if I'm doing my job, whatever that is.
It could be the imposter syndrome speaking or generally judging myself too harshly.
I get calmer when I sit down and think about what is right and what isn't. If I need to focus on the right things, I work on urgent items. That makes me feel that the impact of not working on the right things is only noticed long-term, or there's a bit of leeway in course correction.
Right pacing
Like any marathon, we're on a long run most of the time, so it's good to pace ourselves to avoid burnout.
Keeping a constant high-impact pace is difficult. We constantly have to prioritize and re-prioritize our tasks with new information that gets thrown our way. Additionally, we're only sometimes focused, motivated, well-rested, or even aligned with our leadership's choices.
Showing up daily is essential, and our "best" will vary daily, but I surely want to give my best.
Another view
A thing that helps me keep grounded and re-focus is having a community of peers in the same level or same scope. Conversations that go both ways questioning and helping each other grow.
That has certainly helped me learn more and grow as an engineer. Your turn!
Have you ever wondered if you do a good job? Do you get good feedback from your manager? Or teammates? Let me know your experience by replying to this email!
Happy coding!
Things I discovered in the past week
- An X (Twitter?) thread about burnout!
- A blog post by the Delivery Hero Engineering team about Event Driven architectures.
- I recently picked up the PARA Method book for Kindle; I was already using PARA but in my way. I wanted to see how much it differs from the "official" way.
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