Purpose and fulfilment are strange concepts. The harder you search for them, the more elusive they become.
I’ve spent time trying to understand what’s next in my career. People have offered different advice: start my own thing, take my skills to a new company, or continue growing in engineering management at Bash.
Over the past few years I’ve gotten to know myself better and one of the biggest realisations I’ve had is that I wouldn’t want to work on a solo venture - my personality is not cut out for it. While I enjoy building technology, I tire myself out with second-guessing and imposter syndrome. Without a co-founder or team, that would slowly chip away at me. Could I work on something with a team? Definitely, if it was something I was passionate about.
With time on my hands, I’ve been sketching out product ideas. Some have more promise than others, but I’m generally quick to dismiss them. Part of that is insecurity. Part is simple trade-offs (oddly specific: why spend five days building a feature for your wedding site when you can pay €50 and skip the frustration?)
While I will continue fleshing out some of the ideas, the realisation that I’ve had is that my real strength isn’t building something from scratch. It’s being handed a problem, whether organisational or technical, and working with peers I respect to find the most sensible solution in a reasonable timeframe. Sometimes that means coding or designing systems, which I enjoy. But the real fulfilment comes from problem-solving at scale.
This explains my pattern of swinging between IC and manager roles over the past four years. The question of ‘what’s next’ remains open, but being able to step back has allowed me to have more clarity in what type of role I’m looking for.
