A few things I learned in the first 6-months of full-time work

Disclaimer: [By the time I got around to writing this I actually hit the 7-month mark.] I work at a fairly large engineering company, and had to write my first formal performance self evaluation (what?) recently. This got me quite reflective on the past several months worth of work. I’m writing this down and sharing in case these ideas are helpful to anyone else thinking about their goals in the early stages of their career. But selfishly, I hope to have some notes to look back on after 6 more months, when I need to inevitably go through this process again.

1. Don’t sweat the small stuff: Why didn’t this person respond to me? Do they hate me? Will anyone call me out for not knowing X? You’re probably doing your best and doing better than you think you are.
2. Accept and embrace the fact that you will make mistakes. Big and small. Try to handle them as graciously as possible but try to move on. Analyze the situation and look for opportunities to improve.
3. Find mentors and folks that you trust. These people are kind of crucial to your success and well-being regarding your job (especially virtually). It’s valuable to get perspective from people who are not directly within your team or in your organization.
4. You need to be honest with yourself and your manager about your strengths, weaknesses, and known areas for potential improvement.
5. Ask lots and lots of questions. This one is so hard.. It’s difficult to feel comfortable enough to expand out of your shell and ask the simple questions. It’s also easy to internalize questions before asking them and deem them too basic or “dumb” but that is almost never the case. Asking any and all the questions that pop into your head sometimes leads more senior people to question the stuff they thought was obvious and actually improve it for the next person that walks along.
6. Ask multiple people the same questions (in different contexts/settings). This does wonders for soliciting different viewpoints and opinions. But take it with a grain of salt. People are there to share their thoughts and advice with you.. but make sure that you proactively seek it out, and form your own understanding based off at least a holistic view of everyone’s analyses.
7. Ask for feedback early and often. It’s completely valid to want to seek opportunities to improve yourself. And it’s literally part of your manager and coworkers’ jobs to help you become a better version of yourself.
8. Don’t take yourself too seriously. In tech we don’t work on life or death scenarios, thankfully. Nobody’s job or life is on the line if you don’t submit that code tonight or if you miss an email, ping, or even a deadline. So step back and relax every now and then, and remind yourself that it’s not always supposed to be as stressful as we can make it out to be in the heat of the moment.
9. It’s always going to be valuable to be able to speak intelligently to your strengths and weaknesses. Communication is a core job function of every job where it’s not the primary function. Virtual communication is hard but not impossible to pick up on cues. Be as honest as possible and curious. Be inspired to want to improve upon your skills and experiences.
10. Make a conscious effort to connect with people. Sure it’s harder to do this remotely but business is largely a social enterprise and people are more likely to enjoy working with you if you build solid relationships and become a good listener. Ask people how they are doing and listen to their response.

This all being said, I work remotely right now and probably have a pretty narrow view of things. If you’re reading this and in the early stages of your first job, I’d love to know more about your learnings as well.