London, day 8: I became a software engineer last week. This is how it went.
The draft was originally written on Jul 20. Revised and published on Aug 9 while doing my best to keep the spirit of the conversation same.
It’s not every day to be uprooted to a new city, with a new job, new surrounding, new friends — and a completely new life. I’m still amazed that this is all unfolding!
Some context is in order
Rewind back to April, I applied for a rotation program at Google. I thought I’d wanted to experience how an engineering team thinks, and be familiar with the discipline of engineering. My “home” role was project management and analytics in sales strategy and operations, while the “rotation” role I applied to in London is a software engineer.
One random day in May, I opened my inbox and saw a “Congratulations!” email from the organization. I was taken aback for a second, since by then I almost forgot about my application! I turned around and looked at my manager who was cc’ed on the email, and he gave me a big thumbs up. Of course, I gladly said yes.
It never occurred to me how transformational this experience would be.
Building new routines
On my flight to London, I thought to myself: “It’s a great time to build new habits.”
Even more so, it’s a great time to connect with myself and discover what makes me tick. It’s time to meditate, be at peace, take everything in for what it’s worth, and enjoy the little things.
So far, I’ve consistently explored the city. Going for runs turned out to be a great way to exercise and explore.
Damn, engineering is hard.
Like, seriously, overwhelmingly, really hard. I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say this has been the single most intellectually challenging thing I’ve done since college.
This is a perfect storm. I’ve worked with PM and engineers on my “home” job, and I’ve done some personal projects learning how to code, but I’ve never worked on a proper engineering team building enterprise software (we’re working on a web-based data reporting and visualization tool). I’ve known that developing software can be complex, but never had first-hand experience.
My first week was immersed in reading documentation. My manager sent me some documentation to read. “Fair enough,” I thought, “how bad can some documentation be? I’ve read textbooks before… and these documentations are clearly built with the intention of onboarding new team members.”
Oh boy! As I found out, just reading through documentation is a most challenging chore! It’s not just the couple dozen pages of project documentation, but every reference link opens up an entire library of new documentation or another codelab. It’s endless!
It’s a surreal feeling is surreal. I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but it feels like getting picked up and then beaten down, intellectually, day after day.
Without proper training, it was to the races of figuring things out. It was especially hard, since I can’t discern what is a basic question (that all engineers should know by heart) or what is a legitimate project-related question. I felt somewhat embarrassed asking questions to people, fearing that they’d be too basic.
When one of my teammate gave me a walkthrough of our product, I felt like I was listening to a different language, here and there recognizing some words and patterns that I recognize. I remember him looking at me with expectant eyes, hoping to enlist a nod. It was a serious moment of imposter syndrome of “why am I here.”
All said, though, it’s actually very exciting to try to tackle.
I’m compelled to go out! Explore a new city!
After living in the Bay Area for 8 years, I do feel some lethargy has set into my life. I was less interested in going out or trying new things: part of it was the commute was so exhausting, part of it was a feeling that I’ve seen most things already.
Whereas now, everything is new! And that is genuinely the best part of being in a new city. My senses are jolted wide open, ready to take in a new world, especially such a cosmopolitan, historically relevant, and culturally rich city of London. There are endless sights to behold!
I also feel so fortunate to be spending a long, but limited time, in the city. Three months affords plenty opportunity to explore, and knowing that the time will fly past creates a level of urgency, that I can’t just sit on my butt at home and lounge around.
For someone that loves to plan, I embraced the idea of getting lost — well, equipped with my phone. Yesterday, I hopped on one of those red double decker buses going north, without a destination. “Part of the fun is getting lost”, I thought. I ended up blindly in the gritty Turkish neighborhood of Dalston in East London. Colorful buildings, a completely different demographic from more central London, and a sense of adventure awaited me. After walking around for an hour, I discovered an outstanding Turkish restaurant down a random alley, that made a mean kebab.
I’ve had my fair share of false starts. Trying to go to city center cafes over the weekend turned out to be a bad idea (nothing was open). Also overly trusting Google Maps for Tube entrances was a bad idea (weekend closures! construction work!).
Back home, I would’ve thought that these were a waste of time, and tried to plan better. But in a mood of adventure, these are also part of the charm, inviting me to wander around residential neighborhoods that I would never find as a “tourist”. It’s part of feigning the “local” life, as much as I can.
It’s these little discoveries that make traveling so much fun.
PS: Notes to myself
I can’t be more glad that I took this opportunity. Despite the challenges, it’s exceeded every expectation I had. It’s a breathtaking experience of being in a new city, new culture, and new job.
I didn’t think twice about being a software engineer, maybe slight apprehension that I won’t be a top performer. Never would I have thought I’d face so such a big obstacle. All that means: this is a tremendous learning opportunity. Drinking from a firehose has never been so fitting a word in my life.
Being in the city center, having easy access to public transportation, is great.