Sustainable Career Development: Advancing While Still Having Free Time

In this talk, we'll examine the pressure in the tech industry to participate in work-related extracurriculars like side projects and meetups. We'll analyze where these expectations come from, what they're actually getting at, and talk about ideas for progressing in our careers without losing sight of the things in life that make us happy outside of work.

Transcript

1. Sustainable Career Development: Advancing While Still Having Free Time Noelle Daley | @elnoelle Open Source Bridge 2016 | https://goo.gl/Ms5Onc
2. What are we going to talk about?
3. 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
4. Who is this talk for?
5. What are we going to talk about? People who care deeply about their work, but don’t want to lose sight of other hobbies or priorities.
6. Hi!
7. Goals 1. Acknowledge pressure in the industry to do outside work 2. Know that you’re not alone 3. Practical ideas for advancing your career
8. Anti-goal! Adding more pressure
9. What is “pressure”? Pressure: feeling of obligation to participate in work-related activities outside of working hours
10. What kinds of activities? • Attending meetups or conferences • Reading technical blogs or books • Side projects • Public speaking
11. Like any systemic pattern, pressure in the tech industry is really hard to measure.
12. We can’t really separate ourselves from the problem.
13. Mostly software engineers Varying levels of experience in the industry Who are we talking about?
14. How common is this pressure?
15. How common is this pressure?
16. Motivations 1. Keeping up with coworkers 2. Keeping up with the industry 3. Learning opportunities 4. General curiosity
17. Keeping up with coworkers
18. “ “… worried that I'll fall behind in the eyes of management if I don't devote personal time to advancing my technical skills.”
19. Keeping up with the industry
20. “ “The need to stay up to date with the fast pace of technology.” “Staying relevant; adding or maintaining skills.”
21. Outside learning opportunities
22. “ “Would like to improve my career in ways that are not open to me within my day job. Seeking these opportunities outside of work are my only avenue at this moment.”
23. General curiosity
24. Learning is fun!
25. “ “I feel like I need to participate in these activities in order to… set myself up for success in the industry, but I mainly do it because I genuinely enjoy it.”
26. Why is this bad? 1. Hinders diversity 2. Leads to burnout 3. Scares people away
27. Hinders diversity
28. allmalepanels.tumblr.com
29. When we expect people to use their leisure time for career development, we’re systematically excluding those without the privilege of time or energy.
30. Time and energy are finite resources
31. • Parents • Families • Students • People with disabilities
32. Burnout
33. • Fatigue • Depression • Anxiety • Lack of concentration • Loss of productivity
34. “ “trying to live up to [the culture’s expectations] may lead to drug use, workaholism, heroism, alcoholism.” Shanley Kane, “10x Engineer”
35. Scares people away
36. Can lead people to think they don’t have what it takes
37. Feeds into the illusion that you’re either amazing or terrible
38. “ dichotomy between amazing and terrible can “lead people to think they must think about programming every waking moment of their life” Jacob Kaplan-Moss, PyCon 2015 Keynote
39. Why things are the way they are 1. Passion rhetoric 2. Side projects 3. Github as a resume
40. Overuse of “passion”
41. passion: strong and barely controllable emotion
42. “ “If I fail to put [code] ahead of friends and family… am I failing to give the team my 100%?” Avdi Grimm, “The Moderately Enthusiastic Programmer”
45. Side projects
46. • Learning new skills • Applying what you’ve learned • Job opportunities
47. side projects take time
48. “ “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”
49. Github as a resume
50. • Work samples • Best practices • Growth • Familiar with git
51. …but it doesn’t demonstrate all skills necessary to be successful
52. coding skills are not the only important part of being successful at your job!
53. • How do you manage your time? • How do you communicate? • How do you collaborate with others? • How well do you meet deadlines? • How do you handle conflict? • How do you make decisions? • What do you do when you get stuck?
54. Review Pressure Why it’s bad How we got here
55. What are these trends really getting at?
56. Passion ➡ Motivated, Curious
57. Side projects ➡ Adaptable
58. Github ➡ Committed
59. Motivated Curious Adaptable Committed
60. What can we do instead?
61. Kwu’s Guide to Learning 1. Have a general sense of the direction you want your career to go in 2. Figure out the ONE thing you can do that will have the most impact 3. Decide how to measure progress 4. Figure out what the most effective way for you to progress 5. Evaluate if method is useful 6. Rinse & repeat
62. Anti-goal! Adding more pressure
63. Don’t do everything at once
64. Think about what you want, and set boundaries
65. Find your learning style
66. Say no to things that don’t help you meet your goal
67. Schedule time
68. Join a club
69. Write docs
70. Find a mentor
71. Find a mentee
72. Slow pairing
73. Celebrate progress
74. Check in with trusted peers
75. Be kind to yourself
76. Enjoy your hobbies
77. Be open
78. Summary • This industry expects a lot of us • There are many different factors for this • You can advance your career without succumbing to pressure by optimizing the time you have at work and changing the way you think • You are not alone!
79. Thanks! Any questions? https://goo.gl/Ms5Onc You can find me at: @elnoelle · daleynoelle@gmail.com
80. Credits & Related Reading • http://allmalepanels.tumblr.com/ • 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-obstacles-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
81. Photo Credits • WOCinTechChat.com • Pexels.com • https://www.flickr.com/photos/eflon/ • Presentation template by SlidesCarnival