2024 was my first year ever working on a product.
In my short career I'd mostly been focusing on research & development, so it was a new experience contributing to a somewhat well-established product. And I learned a bunch. From being just a stereotypical nerdy developer hacking away at the terminal, I gained some crucial soft skills:
- Prioritization: Ruthlessly prioritize towards the top line goal. How much impact it generate? How much effort will it take?
- Stakeholder Alignment: Start communicating early. If you must pick one side, do so. Be transparent and escalate cleanly if needed.
- Risk Management: Enumerate the known & unknown risks of each plan, and weigh the overall merits of each strategy.
- Do the right thing: Make sure you can sleep at night with your decisions. This can help you become less stressed.
- Ask for help: You can't do everything. Your manager would rather have you asking for help with an A+ impact than not asking for help and having a C- impact.
Surprisingly, over time, I've found these lessons to also be useful in my private life.
- Prioritization: You have limited time in the world and in your life. Your remaining face time with any person depends largely on where that person falls on your list of life priorities. Make sure this list is set by you—not by unconscious inertia. Stakeholder Alignment: You can't make everybody happy, conflicts are bound to arise. Try to get people to see eye-to-eye, but if they can't be convinced, or the effort is not worth it, you must choose to align with the most important person to you.
- Risk Management: Risk management is everywhere: marrying a partner, booking a vacation, or health repercussions of lifestyle habits. Understand the risks and benefits of each plan; analysis may help come up with a better solution.
- Do the right thing: Make sure you can sleep at night with your decisions. Listen to your conscience.
- Ask for help: You can't do everything. Learn to lower your ego and accept help from others.