It’s wise to reflect on your strengths and weaknesses. Consider what motivates you and what kind of people or activities enhance your ambitions and willpower. Pursuing side projects will help you learn more about yourself and continue to seek out ambitious peers outside of work.
Paul Graham wrote in one of his essays:
“Ambitious people are rare, so if everyone is mixed together randomly, as they tend to be early in people’s lives, then the ambitious ones won’t have many ambitious peers.
When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water.
Probably most ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they’d get from ambitious peers, whatever their age.”
Your goal should be to avoid this ‘starvation’ by joining teams of individuals who share your principles and values and are working on ambitious projects that can have a significant impact. This will accelerate your learning curve and enhance job satisfaction.
Big Companies
In a large company, it’s much harder to find the right engineering team, and the pace is often slower, with less risk-taking and more bureaucracy. You might find yourself stuck in meetings and not creating anything substantial. However, you can seek out subcultures or teams that align with your values and ambitions, operating similarly to startups, to find a growth-conducive micro-environment. In larger organizations, you benefit from stability and access to vast resources.
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Startups
It’s easier to find ambitious peers in smaller companies due to the close interaction with the core team, including founders who are deeply committed to the company’s mission. Brian Chesky, the founder and CEO of Airbnb, personally interviewed the first 500 candidates to ensure he was hiring people aligned with the mission. Take your interview skills to the next level here.
Smaller tech companies, with up to 500 employees and often led by visionary founders, tend to attract like-minded individuals and maintain a culture that prioritizes high performers. In these companies, everyone is typically more directly involved in the company’s mission.
For example, many startups in Nordic cities, such as Stockholm where I am based, are addressing global challenges. They tackle issues related to climate action, renewable energy, and more, imbuing their work with a sense of purpose and meaning. Smaller tech companies are defined in various ways, but they commonly exhibit high agility, rapid product development, and a frequent rate of product iteration and innovation.
In summary, the journey to find the right employer is deeply personal and varies greatly depending on individual ambitions and values. your career is not just about the technical skills you develop or the projects you work on; it’s also about the people you meet along the way, the ideas you encounter, and the impact you make.
Stay curious, keep learning, and don’t forget to connect with like-minded people.
Explore genvalues.com and dive into a world where your engineering passion meets its purpose!
