[Lightning Talk] Sustainable Career Development: Advancing While Still Having Free Time

This is a condensed version of a talk by the same name. It addresses the pressure in the tech industry to participate in work-related extracurriculars like side projects and meetups and provides ideas for progressing in our careers without sacrificing all our leisure time.

https://speakerdeck.com/noelledaley/sustainable-career-development-advancing-while-still-having-free-time

Transcript

1. Sustainable Career Development: Advancing While Still Having Free Time Noelle Daley | @elnoelle Donut.JS | August 2016 | http://goo.gl/sOAEXs
2. What are we going to talk about? 1. Pressure to participate in work-related extracurriculars 2. What that pressure is actually getting at 3. How we can advance our careers without giving up our free time
3. What is “pressure”? Pressure: feeling of obligation to participate in work-related activities outside of working hours
4. Why do people feel pressured?
5. Why is this bad?
6. How did we get here?
7. Not-so-sustainable trends 1. Passion rhetoric 2. Side projects 3. Github as a resume
8. Overuse of “passion”
10. passion: strong and barely controllable emotion
11. Side projects
12. “ “the industry’s emphasis on [side projects] inherently disadvantages people who cannot regularly work on them.” Terri Burns, “Side Project Culture: Opportunities and Obstacles for Marginalized People in Tech”
13. Github as a resume
14. coding skills are not the only important part of being successful at your job!
15. What are these trends really getting at?
16. Passion ➡ Motivated, Curious
17. Side projects ➡ Adaptable
18. Github ➡ Committed
19. Motivated Curious Adaptable Committed
20. What can we do instead?
21. Spoiler: Utilize time at work. Change the way you think!
22. What can we do instead? 1. Be targeted 2. Set boundaries 3. Experiment 4. Be kind
23. What can we do instead? 1. Be targeted 2. Set boundaries 3. Experiment 4. Be kind
24. Don’t do everything at once
25. Schedule time
26. What can we do instead? 1. Be targeted 2. Set boundaries 3. Experiment 4. Be kind
27. Think about what you want, and set boundaries
28. Say no so you can say yes later
29. What can we do instead? 1. Be targeted 2. Set boundaries 3. Experiment 4. Be kind
30. Find your learning style
31. Join a club
32. Find a mentor or mentee
33. Slow pairing
34. What can we do instead? 1. Be targeted 2. Set boundaries 3. Experiment 4. Be kind
35. Celebrate progress
36. Be open
37. Summary • This industry expects a lot of us • There are many different factors for this • You can still advance your career by optimizing the time you have at work and changing the way you think • You are not alone!
38. Thanks! Any questions? http://goo.gl/sOAEXs You can find me at: @elnoelle · daleynoelle@gmail.com
39. Credits & Related Reading • Juliana Arrighi, “Finding Your Own Learning Path”, https://goo.gl/rin3Fj • Terri Burns, “Side Project Culture: Opportunities and Obstacles for Marginalized People in Tech”, https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/side-project-culture-opportunities-and-obstacle s-for-marginalized-people-in-tech • Avdi Grimm, “The Moderately Enthusiastic Programmer”, devblog.avdi.org/2014/01/31/the-moderately-enthusiastic-programmer/ • Lara Hogan, “The Importance of Donuts”, http://larahogan.me/donuts/ • http://www.babevibes.com/the-pep-talk-generator/ • Shanley Kane, “10x Engineer”, Your Startup is Broken: Inside The Toxic Heart of Tech Culture • Jacob Kaplan-Moss, PyCon 2015 Keynote, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIJdFxYlEKE • Katherine Wu, “Continuing Education at Work”, https://speakerdeck.com/kwugirl/continuing-education-at-work-self-dot-conference
40. Photo Credits • WOCinTechChat.com • https://www.flickr.com/photos/eflon/ • Presentation template by SlidesCarnival