As technology evolves rapidly, the scope of an engineer's work and the skills it requires keep growing broader. Camille Fournier, author of The Manager's Path, recently published "An incomplete list of skills senior engineers need, beyond coding" on her platform, shedding light on the hard side of being an engineer. Is being an engineer exhausting? Jason (Yu-Lin Cheng), a consultant at 5xRuby with more than 15 years of experience in the tech industry, shares his work principles.

[Figure 1] Engineers need to learn to cope with the loneliness of the job, tedious repetitive processes, and failure.
(Photographer: Field Engineer, link: Pexels)

A Question for Engineers: Are You Willing to Fall into Pitfalls?

"My job, basically, is digging pits for myself to fall into, then filling them in and digging new ones, over and over again." Jason explains that, given his background, he serves clients using a variety of free and open-source software. Whenever a client raises a new requirement (a new pit), he has to try out different solutions (fall into new pits) and crack the problems one by one. The difficulty is that there is no prior experience to draw on, so you have to build your own ability to come up with solutions; otherwise, relying on outsourcing vendors can end up costing you an important technical foundation.

 

Jason believes that to become an outstanding engineer, you need a mindset that welcomes challenges and doesn't shy away from difficulties (pitfalls). After all, an engineer's job is to solve problems. Technology changes quickly these days, and if you don't push yourself to keep learning new things, the skills you have now may soon become outdated. In his view, it is better to run into new problems now than later: the sooner you start "falling into pitfalls" on a large scale, the more of that valuable experience you will carry with you. After all, those skills belong to you, and no one can take them away.

 

Jason shares the following 3 work principles:

1. Improve Your Workflow to Free Up Precious Time

"Work keeps me so busy that I have no time to learn anything new." Many people have been in this situation. IT engineering work spans engineering architecture, system maintenance and information services, and engineers in large and small organizations are responsible for different areas. When your time and energy are worn down by repetitive tasks, it is hard to stay passionate. In that case, use your own technical skills to improve your workflow: build automation to cut down on repetitive work and remove bottlenecks in execution. Only then can you meet your clients' needs while gaining a sense of achievement in your field, and free up time to learn.

2. When You Hit a Setback at Work, Don't Rush to Solve It; Set It Aside First

 

Of course you should try to overcome setbacks at work, but there will always be problems that stay unsolved no matter how hard you rack your brain. At times like these, you need to put the problem down and give yourself a change of mood first. Jason says that when he runs into an unsolvable problem at work, his mental energy is already spent, and pushing on would just waste working hours spinning his wheels, so he needs to go do something else. For example, he reads martial arts novels and draws inspiration from the thrilling duels between masters, or he sleeps on it to get a full rest and reset his mood before coming back to the problem. And if you truly can't solve it and feel discouraged, you also need to learn to "go easy on yourself." Once you get the chance to solve the problem later on, remember to turn that sense of achievement into fuel to keep moving forward.

 

3. Learn to Cope with the Loneliness of the Job, Tedious Repetitive Processes, and Failure

 

As an engineer, you often have to shut yourself away in a client's server room or in front of your own computer, doing tedious, repetitive work: trying, failing, trying and failing again, endlessly, until you finally succeed. Failure is the biggest challenge to your state of mind, and when you face a problem with no guidance to refer to, an overwhelming sense of helplessness and loneliness can set in. Jason believes that although the process isn't easy, if you write down and learn from every failure, building up your "ability to solve problems," you will take fewer and fewer detours in the future.

 

IT departments are often seen as units that cost a lot of money. "Any problem money can solve isn't really a problem; the problem is not having the money." Jason explains that engineers frequently run into situations where the company lacks the budget to purchase a solution. Having no money doesn't mean you can only sit and wait; it is all the more reason to keep working to find a way out of the predicament, for example by seeking out alternative software from many sources. Although this is a tough test for engineers, it is also an opportunity to build up your own assets. Jason believes that if you put yourself in the role of a senior executive and try to solve problems the way a boss would think, you can create your own unique philosophy for surviving in the workplace.

 

[Figure 2] Jason, consultant at 5xRuby. (Photo courtesy of Jason)

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Company Profile

Founded in 2014, 5xRuby Co., Ltd. is one of the most representative companies in Taiwan specializing in the Ruby programming language, focusing on web services built with the Ruby on Rails framework. Its brand clients span Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and beyond. The company has helped an overseas startup develop a cross-border e-commerce service that successfully raised a Series A round, and has developed in-house apps and web services for many publicly listed Taiwanese companies. Through technical advisory and enterprise technology consulting for brands, 5xRuby lays a complete foundation for their web development and provides professional web solutions.

 

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