At any point in your career as an engineer, it’s healthy to ask yourself what is the next step you need to take to become better. In the early stages, it’s likely that your technical skills can improve a lot. Later on, you may notice that your technical ability is no longer the most leveraged aspect of your productivity, and you can be more effective by understanding better the problems you’re solving.
I heard somewhere that one way to become the 10x engineer is to find the way to solve the problem you’re facing with 10x less work. That’s arguable, of course, but it does hint at something undeniable. It’s really important to understand your context in order to be effective. In fact, sometimes the most leveraged achievement doesn’t even require a highly technical skillset, just the right approach.
I believe that growing in this direction is important for motivation because it gives more meaning to your work.
I’d take that idea even further and say that you should not only understand well the problems you’re solving but also understand well what problems are worth solving, and in general it’s good to understand the impact of your craft.
Being able to choose work that’s also meaningful is a privilege and a luxury that not all can afford to do. So if you can, go for it. For example, I joined Wave a little over a year ago, and it was the best move I could have made for my career path. It has been a boost for my skills as an engineer, but more importantly, it also has given more meaning to my work which has helped me stay motivated.
Wave is a company where we’re solving an important problem: financial infrastructure in Africa. For me, this is a problem worth solving, and I feel excited that I get to work on this every day.
We’re now hiring engineers to support the huge growth we’ve been experiencing. We have a very diverse and extremely talented team working remotely from everywhere across the globe. If anything of the above resonates with you, definitely consider applying to one of our open positions.
Or, you know, at least give some thought to what’s the ultimate goal of the company you work for and its impact, then decide if it’s worth your time or find a company that works on something that you care about. Life is too short to waste it.