3rd July, 2024

A look back at some of the decisions I have made this year, and what I am focusing on now.

I have been a little bit MIA the last few months, and this post is an explanation as to why. I want to do a better job of sharing more about what I am thinking of in my life via this Substack outside of my typical articles, because so much of what I write about is intertwined with my day to day life.

Stepping back from socials

The topic of social media addiction is one that I have covered numerous time over the years. I went for the majority of my twenties without owning a smart phone and with minimal presence over social media, but I started utilising it when I started working in software. It scares me how attached I become to my little routines like checking through Instagram or doom-scrolling Twitter, and it also scares me how much I instinctively make comparisons between myself and others.

I deleted Twitter and Instagram from my phone, and it was very uncomfortable, yet that unease cemented the idea that this was an act that was important for me to see through. The first few weeks I found myself mindlessly opening up my phone and trying to locate the apps when I had a spare moment, almost in a trance. I cringed at the amount of times a song came on Spotify that I wanted to repost to my stories - when you think about it this is entirely self-indulging, "look at me and my great taste in music my internet friends, please accept me". A couple of times I found myself sitting down of an evening and looking at my email inbox and reading through emails that I would never have evening looked at prior, my craving for any scrap of dopamine so potent.

After a few weeks, I have become much more comfortable with embracing these empty spaces that social media would otherwise fill. As a person I am much more present and available. I feel more in tune with my thoughts and feelings as well as my nasty habit of comparing myself to others has decreased entirely which has meant that I am much more focused on comparing myself to myself and focusing on growing as an individual rather than competing with people living an entirely different life to me. My notebook has never been so filled with thoughts and ideas, and this is a direct correlation to the fact that I have more brain space and time just to sit and ponder. It is beautiful.

I am going to gradually start posting more on Twitter, but my interaction with the platform is going to be very minimal. Building an audience and sharing my thoughts on there is very in line with some of my goals and ambitions, so coming up with a plan to do so without ruining the progress I have made so far is important. I have found that being able to utilise a platform such as Typefully is really useful and minimises my exposure to the parts I don't want to see. This is also something I want to do to prove to people that it can be done without being a super social individual with a huge online presence.

Everyday Obsidian

For the last year, I have been leaning heavier into the idea that I would love to build something of my own and generate a second income from my own creation. Maybe an effect of the 'solopreneur' pill that is being shared all over socials, but nonetheless I wanted to try. Sure, the extra income is great, but as someone who works with startups having the experience of taking a product from zero to out in the open first hand was something I believed was only going to sharpen my toolset. I started working on Everyday Obsidian the last few months of 2023, and took the opportunity to work on it full time the first few months of the year.

A number of years ago I took a writing gig for a engineering metrics company to work on alongside my day job. Ironically I did a couple of articles before realising that I hated it. I love to write, it is one of the joys in my life, but adding the pressure of deadlines and lack of flexibility of topics and it became something that I started to resent. Creativity and regular delivery were at logger heads, trying to release an article each week meant that I felt much less inspired and lacked the enjoyment in the writing I was doing.

I started noticing this when building my course. Although working on Everyday Obsidian full time was a joy, I did notice that the pressure of this being my sole source of income for the foreseeable added another element that didn't sit so well. After the release I vowed to myself that I was going to find a more regular source of income, and start working on Everyday Obsidian alongside that once again. Having an hour or two every morning before work to pour your heart and soul into a project is magical. That passion shows through, and deep down I knew I wasn't able to give that when I was worried about the logistics of the course and whether it would be enough to support me long term.

The fact that so many people have reached out and complimented the content I have put out really drills home the idea that being able to find simplicity in the tools we are using day to day is something that people are interested in and is still going to be a record I play over and over. I am filming the next section of the course and really look forward to sharing it with people.

The world of work

At the start of the year I finished my gig at Zoa where I was leading a collection of Platform engineering teams. I had started at Zoa as a contractor - when I first reached out I knew very little about the company as they were in 'stealth' mode with a completely different name, but I took a chance keen to start contracting as an engineering leader. I was fortunate enough to join a company that was full to the brim of incredibly smart and passionate people, likely some of the best engineers that I have had the pleasure of working with.

Zoa had it's own unique organisational challenges due to it's history of being a reincarnation of Bulb, a well known 'challenger' energy company in the UK. I won't go into it too much here, but I bet you can imagine the complexities that a 90 person company building an initial product and finding product market fit might bring.

Coming into the software engineering industry late (I am a career changer, and started coding in my twenties) I have always had a slight chip on my shoulder in the sense that I have been subconsciously trying to make up for lost time. This has meant taking intentionally big steps in responsibility with each role I have tackled that were particularly intimidating. Building simple websites for local business’, to working on large apps for various house hold names at a consultancy. Going from leading a small team at said consultancy to managing two teams at Monzo. Jumping from two teams to being responsible for forty plus engineers and several managers at MoonPay. Joining Zoa and looking after platform engineers building some complex infrastructure was so out of my comfort zone and area of technical expertise - but all of these decisions were based around me progressing in my career.

Thinking about what was next and what would be a step up in terms of responsibility had me feeling uncharacteristically uninterested. This is a similar sentiment I have heard from a few engineering leaders recently, in that the extra stress of managing bigger teams under a high pressure situation is just not particularly exciting or rewarding.

Salaries are an interesting topic here also and I topic of which I intend to write more deeply about in a later article. I am incredibly fortunate in that my typical salary puts me in a very small minority in the UK in terms of earners. What I earn, mixed with the location in the UK I live means that I have enough to have an incredibly comfortable life financially. Losing quality of life or inviting more stress into my life for the sake of a slightly higher salary is not a balance I want to spoil. I generally believe very much in the sentiment of Naval's "How to get rich" ideology, that wealth is created by building your own business and/or clever investing rather than renting out your time. A bigger salary generally demands more skin in the game of the individual (this is definitely not always the case!) and realistically can top out when you aren’t including other assets in the compensation. That and the fact that once you go past the additional tax rate in the UK, even a jump of 20/30k means very little in terms of what comes back in your payslip. This is something that I am very mindful of.

I think back to the parts of my career I have enjoyed the most and it has always been working with smaller teams - when things are still fast and and small changes can have real impact. There seems to be a new wave of companies & products that hold design fundamentals and customer experience at the core, and work on creating the absolute best product they can with the small and intentionally grown team that they have. Too many times I have strapped in on a rocketship of a company that is growing too fast too quickly, and that bloat really ruins the output and effectiveness of the team.

I love leading teams and everything that is associated with that part of my role, but I am also looking for more opportunities to get my hands dirty and be much closer to the creation and growth of a product. Having that image and knowing exactly what I want from a role and understanding the value I believe I can bring has been both a blessing and a curse in a ridiculously brutal job market.

But more on that and what is next soon ;)