Building Together: Evolving Past Technical Excellence
The two-track career
There’s a common thread running through the last few posts I’ve written. It’s the idea that technology is fundamentally a human endeavor. We build it, we break it, and we use it (or fail to use it) to connect with other people.
In my last post, I wrote about watching my kid try to use an old Super Nintendo cartridge. It was a reminder that the best technology isn't always the newest, but the most meaningful. It’s the story, the experience, and the human connection that matters most, not the technical specs.
And before that, I wrote about the empathy gap, that chasm between a company's stated values and its actual behavior. It’s a common trap for startups that claim to be "empathy-driven" but then treat their own employees like disposable resources. You can't build a product for people if you're not a company for people.
This brings me back to a story I told a few posts ago (the one about the irate customer with the broken email). In that moment, I learned that empathy is a tool. It's not just a soft skill or a nice-to-have. It’s a fundamental part of solving a problem. It’s about seeing the person on the other end of the screen not as an adversary, but as a partner in a shared struggle.
We are in a moment of great change. I don't mean just in technology (although there is that, too, of course) but in the very nature of work. The old model of a single, lifelong career is fading. We're moving toward a world of portfolio careers, side hustles, and "gig" work. We're all, to some degree, entrepreneurs now.
This shift presents a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is that the old safety nets are gone. We're responsible for our own career paths, our own professional development, and our own financial security. The opportunity is that we have more control than ever before. We can choose what we work on, who we work with, and how we work.
I've been in the tech industry for a long time, and I've seen this change happen in real time. When I started, you went to a company, you stayed for twenty years, and you got a gold watch. Now, you're lucky if you stay for two.
I'm an outlier. I've had many different jobs (developer, writer, support, leader, etc.) but I've had very few employers. I have been able to make those shifts in title and scope at the same company. My long-term employment has been a feature, not a bug, of my career.
This type of career isn't for everyone, of course. Some people love the change and excitement of a new company every couple of years. But I think there's a lot to be said for staying put. You build a deep understanding of the company's culture, its history, and its people. You develop a network of trust that's hard to replicate anywhere else.
But how do you make this happen? How do you have a long-term career in a short-term world?
I think of a long-term career as having two tracks: the technical track and the human track.
The technical track is about your skills. It's about staying up-to-date with the latest technologies, learning new frameworks, and keeping your skills sharp. This is what we're taught to do in the tech world. It's what we talk about at conferences and in online forums. It's important, but it's only half the story.
The human track is about your relationships. It's about building trust, communicating effectively, and leading with empathy. It's about being a good coworker, a good mentor, and a good friend. It's about understanding that technology is built by people for people.
If you only focus on the technical track, you'll be a great individual contributor, but you'll have a hard time growing into a leadership role or transitioning into a new domain. If you only focus on the human track, you'll be well-liked, but you won't have the skills to get the job done.
The key to a long-term career is to master both. You have to be a great technologist and a great human. You have to be able to write code and write an empathetic email. You have to be able to debug a system and debug a difficult conversation.
This is especially true in startups. The early days are all about the technical track. It's about building, iterating, and shipping. But as a company grows, the human track becomes more and more important. The problems shift from "how do we build this?" to "how do we build this together?"
This is a lesson that took me a long time to learn. I spent the first half of my career focused almost exclusively on the technical track. I was a good developer, but I was a terrible communicator. I was a great problem-solver but a terrible team player. It wasn't until I started to focus on the human track that my career really took off.
The future of work is not just about what you know. It's about who you are. It's about being a great technologist and a great human. It's about building a career that is as resilient as it is rewarding.