As a Software Engineer, learn this one fundamental skill

Samudra Banerjee — Sun, 09 Apr 2023 21:54:19 +0000

Let me start with a confession. Despite being a high achiever in school, I was miserable for most of my career as a Software Engineer. I had bad work-ethics, low self-esteem and struggled to get along with co-workers. I wondered if my life would ever get any better.

But things are different now. I have a healthy relationship with my manager and some of my co-workers are great friends. I enjoy reading and participate in a tech discussions. I've worked on several interesting projects and have learnt a lot along the way.

What caused this shift? Well, the COVID lockdown. With all the noise out of the way, I read several books and reflected on my life. The one that stood out was Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. I realized that I wasn't looking at things the right way. For me, getting stuck was a question of self-worth. I was overcome with fear whenever anything got challenging. I hesitated to ask for help and procrastinated often. My biggest fear was being judged by others.

To shift my perspective, these are some of the questions I'd ask myself:

Is it even reasonable to not get stuck?
Am I not growing by sticking through this challenge?
Is my fear of judgement rational?
Even if I am critiqued, how can I learn and grow from it?

Developing a growth mindset did not happen overnight. It took months of practice and is still a work-in-progress. I'd often revert to my old ways and course-correct. One of the practices I found helpful was sitting in silence for a few minutes at the end of each day, reflecting on how my day went.

What is great about this mindset is that it applies to life in general. I've been using it to lift heavier at the gym, get better at social interactions and learn new hobbies. But above all else, I've become more compassionate with myself and with others.

My first key strokes

Samudra Banerjee — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 04:41:52 +0000

I was intrigued by computers as early as first grade, when my dad showed me a magazine photo of a computer. "So, if you work on a computer, you basically watch TV all day, right?", I asked my dad. I don't remember what he replied, but I kept a cut-out of that photo. Later, I made a toy computer with a cardboard shoe-box, plastic and a flashlight. "Look, dad. I have a computer now!".

In 3rd grade, we could choose painting, or computers as one of the courses. It was an obvious choice for me. Why on earth would I choose painting? The first "computer class" was all theory and everything flew over my head. "Well, maybe I should have taken painting", I thought. However, things changed the next time when we were taken inside a computer lab. It was full of those early desktops which did not have a hard drive and ran DOS. They had slots for these gigantic floppy disks. I also loved the smell of the air that came out of the air conditioners.

We were using LOGO, which is a language for drawing. I recommend reading about it. It's a fun one. In a nutshell, you are given a "turtle" with a "pen". Upon your command, the turtle moves around the screen, leaving a trail. I typed a couple of commands which were written on the board:

FD 50
RT 90

Which means, "Move forward 50 pixels, then make a 90-degrees right turn". I didn't care about the output. I was exhilarated at the fact that I just operated a computer. Not a toy one, a real one with a real screen!

"Dad, I operated a computer!", I yelled when I reached home.

DEV Community: Samudra Banerjee

As a Software Engineer, learn this one fundamental skill

My first key strokes