Learning Landscape
- 1 minOne of the reasons for wanting to change careers and enter the software world was because of how volatile the learning landscape looked to be. In my previous jobs, life past a certain point became rather mundane since you would hit the knowledge ceiling at some point and you would know all that was needed to do your job well. Take running shoes for example. Barefoot, Neutral, Over/Under-Pronation. Those are the three main “silos” you need to know. Every running shoe falls within those categories and new ideas on that front don’t come that often.
The software landscape on the other hand is quite the opposite. There’s new things coming up all that time. One entering the field now not only has to pick up new things but must also spend a significant amount of time investigating and learning ideas that were discovered/invented decades ago. Many of these old ideas are the foundations for a ton of things that we do daily therefore understanding them becomes essential.
This is good in the sense that you will never hit the ceiling I described above. Even if you decide to specialise in a specific area it is impossible to know everything when things change so fast. On the downside you’re left feeling like the mountain you’re climbing is endless. Sometimes that’s a good feeling to have, other times not so much. Adopting the “Beginner’s Mindset” helps.
Being in an ever-changing environment can be hard but it gets easier when you don’t lose sight of what it was that got you in it to begin with.
Personal blog of Makis Otman