I’ve thought about this numerous times over the course of my career and it is something I want to share. This is for the junior and intermediate developers out there who spend time visiting conferences, reading blogs, listening to podcasts, and doing their best to hone their craft. The developers who week after week take in content from industry influencers talking about the big projects they’ve worked on at BigCompany. Maybe you have thought about what it would feel like to work on similar big projects and experience growth in the industry like them.
I want to let you know－ it is okay if you never work for a big company. You do not need a Facebook, Google, or Netflix on your resume to have a well rounded and fulfilling career. There are lots of smaller companies with rooms full of great talent and experienced people to learn from. They may not be broadcasting it as loudly as some but they are there and they are working on interesting problems.
It is important to remember that people in the spotlight, on stage at conferences, and being interviewed on podcasts, give intriguing glimpses into what they do but these glimpses are refined, heavily finessed, highlight reels of reality. A sub section of the work they do. What you don’t see is all the same work you do every day. Fixing mundane bugs, sitting in planning meetings, writing more CRUD operations, getting stuck on something and finding the answers on stackoverflow. Their job is probably not spending all day every day on that one interesting presentation you watched.
A resume full of companies no one else would recognize can still be an accomplished career. Do not let the noise on social media give you FOMO. If you are happy with your work life balance, and you get along with the people you work with you’re most likely not missing out on anything. Take a little more pride in your projects and feel a greater sense of fulfillment. You may just make someone else think “I want to do what that person is doing”.
