I started working at StackExchange a little over a year ago. I was reminded of this when I realized yearly evaluations are fast approaching...a time when our work and personal growth would be examined to see how our careers are coming along.
This also marks the slightly-over-a-year anniversary of my first day at StackExchange. My first day was July 9th, 2012. I was terrified.
I suppose it isn't out of the ordinary for new hires to have the jitters. But for me, I think it was a little worse than average. I had literally uprooted from my home in rural PA only three days before, moving into a small apartment during what became some of the hottest weather that summer. I was still learning how to navigate the subway system and not familiar with finding the office building once I emerged from the underground labyrinth, and all the stories about mugging and robberies were dancing in my head.
...and that was just the challenge of showing up the first day.
Once there, I had to confront my own demons. Imposter syndrome, I suppose it's called. I had in part tried for this job...a job that I initially didn't get, adding to the pressure to make a decent impression...because it was co-founded by Joel Spolsky, who had an established track record as a leader in the business of software. StackExchange was a growing startup and this certified Internet celebrity had a desk fifteen feet away from my door. To say I find this intimidating is an understatement.
But Joel (or Jo-El of the planet Krypton, as he once quipped on an internal communication...one of several fond memories of the past year and one that illustrated that he was actually human, I think...) wasn't the only perceived job intimidation. StackExchange hires crazy smart programmers. I've always wondered if I had a talent for programming...a what-if scenario where if things had been only slightly different, could I have been successful as a programmer?
To even entertain the idea seemed preposterous. I would be starting from near scratch, since my software projects have been simple and of course atrocious; a simple system for managing user management and log checking at the ISP I was employed with and a few VB projects at the school where I was a sysadmin after that. The college project didn't even use proper error checking to sanitize input, although I at least acknowledged the security issues in my documentation.
But there were times I would write down ideas and read about creating a software startup. My shelves have several books on software engineering and succeeding in small business...so there was always a spark of an idea that never quite caught fire.
Now I'd be working with professionals...as in people I could never bring myself to show my own samples of yesteryear to for fear they'd question how I was hired. Their casual code slinging was yet another source of intimidation I had to overcome. In addition, some of them have software businesses on the side like GoRead and Alikewise.com.
I think there were times David and Kyle felt bad for me when my confidence would flounder. Sometimes.
Gradually I grew out of much of the intimidation and imposter syndrome. Not all of it; I still can't stop the wave of anxiety that hits when I'm near the big boss, fearing I'll do something to make a fool of myself or offend him. But I can approach the programmers' den without feeling that my presence is only tolerated.
Limiting the extent to which I doubted my own competence wasn't the only improvement. I spent much of the past year learning how things work, doing things the StackExchange way. It turns out that isn't easy in a startup when the policies and procedures are in flux. You have to learn how things are gone as well as why they are done that way; then you transition into influencing policies and procedures related to your field. I managed to do that. I'm actively refining our on boarding procedures for new employees and configuring their systems.
I even managed to add a little competence in Cisco. I track down systems on the network using MAC addresses and reconfigure drops to limit access to particular VLANs without supervision anymore...I know, I should have been able to do that sooner. In my previous jobs I didn't need to do it. We rarely had need to reconfigure what gear we had, and when we did, much of it was outsourced to a contractor. We were plenty busy without dealing with that. Now I'm making changes on switches where if something goes south, it'll cost us money and productivity.
Overall much of this year was managing to get my footing. Learning how things are done. And from there finding my niches.
I may someday get into video work; we can host presentations in our lunchroom space, and one time we hosted a talk when our primary AV person was, at the time, on a plane. I was flying solo with the equipment. The presentation went fairly well, and I went through the video to clean it up a bit (and obscure a slip of personal information during the show.) I really enjoyed doing that, as strange as it may sound. A sysadmin that plays with video? Well, I did minor in theater in college, after all. It shouldn't be THAT much of a surprise.
I met the founder of Wikipedia. Thanks to StackExchange, WikiMedia gave the company one ticket to see the Colbert Report the night he was being interviewed and I got the golden ticket!
My wife and I had an enchanting date night for the Christmas party. Utterly gorgeous night. We also had a Mandatory Fun Day at the beach last summer, except for one employee who managed to do major damage to his foot. Apparently sand can be extremely dangerous to walk on.
We've had employees move on. Some went off to join other startups; I feel really good for them when I see updates to their LinkedIn profiles. Some employees got married. It's interesting to watch people grow and change as the company grows and changes. And oh boy has it changed...growing like kudzu, until we needed to move to a new and substantially larger office space, and now even that space is starting to feel a little cramped as the need to double up in offices is looming.
That's pretty much been my professional life for the past year. The post is already long enough to not get into a year of my personal side, the part that gave the blog it's name. Perhaps that will be a topic for another post.
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