What experience did you have to learn more and get a better understanding for your field?

Hi Izaac. When I started in tech, I took any "side jobs" I could, to expand my skills portfolio. One was to edit database code and cleanup the data. It sounds simple enough, but the advantage was I was working as a contractor with a very flexible deadline, so I had plenty of time to test and streamline my code and check my outputs while I was learning more about the software. And that particular software job lead to a hardware job (back in the day :-) before laptops) when we build entire labs of stand alone and networked personal computers and I got the contract to source and build those. Bottom line: Stretch yourself with every new opportunity; the technology is constantly changing, We can never stop learning if we want to be the best choice to lead cutting edge initiatives for our company and customers. Good luck!

Hi,

This is actually a really good question. Unfortunately, my field is "tech" and by definition engineers need to keep improving and keep learning: "be a curious learning machine".

What I personally do (isn't the same for everybody) is allocate 40 minutes a day to read and learn new concepts. However, the best way of learning is doing. After reading, I tend to create a small project to showcase what I've learnt.

Another good thing to do is being open to criticism and to different point of view. Don't let your ego, your title or anything else distract you; I've seen this happening. A senior/VP/CEO not listening to anybody just because the position on the command chain. As a note, you can learn a ton just listening to people. However, this is very tricky because you can't just "accept" everything. It's more complicated. You should defend your ideas, listen to other data points and finally, reevaluate your approach. Ultimately, you can't seek consensus.

Finally, check these principles which helped me a lot to achieve being better on my field: https://www.drift.com/principles/

Kindly,

Jake

Hello,

I have worked mainly in the high tech world for the past 30 years. It really depends on the job or function you are going for? For me, I started in electronics and hardware design. But soon realized that almost every technology today uses software! So even though I had some software programming classes in college, I felt I really needed to get up to speed on the current languages and get experience in this. I went to local college and took some programming classes, and at night after work I would spend hours writing programs and learning how to code. Back then, we had to get help from books, but today, there are a lot of resources online! Eventually my career changed into doing software coding, which I did for 12 years! And then to software testing! So you just never know! It depends on where your interests and desires are, and how much effort you want to put into it.

Good luck in whatever you choose!

David

I came into the networking industry not too long ago 2 years or so. So I'm a recent graduate, what I found was that my internship give me the biggest insight into what it is to join the field. This gave me a view of what the goals of the industry in general are, what problems are people trying to solve, and what it is like to mediate with stakeholders.

Finding ways to get exposure to the field you are interested in will greatly benefit you. When you get an opportunity take it seriously, deliver the best result you can and lastly think proactively about the tasks you do. These sound very general and vague, which they are, but these drove my learning and meant that I exceeded expectations that were had of a university graduate doing an internship or some form of work experience.