7 years journey in IT industry - My success story

Hey Steemians,

If you have followed me from my introduction post, you would already know that I am a computer engineer working in India. I have completed more than 7 years in this lovely industry. Ups and downs are a part of every journey but the most important thing is what you learn from them.
I am not going to write any tips for being a successful engineer etc. because it is a very subjective matter and depends on various factors like your personality, your domain, your country, your company and what not. There is no hard and fast rule of success. It changes as per the world changes. So I am going to share my experiences and learning from the journey.

1. Everything that happens to you is not destiny, erase it and create your own if you don't like it.

I got selected in a big Multi National Company from my college campus itself. Being a new college there were hardly few students who got selected from the college campus and I was one of the lucky(may be deserving) ones. The job profile was for a product support analyst. Someone associated with IT industry will know that most of the ambitious students will not like to work on a support profile. I was no exception. I did not want to join in for a support profile but as I said I was one of the lucky students who got a campus placement I did not have the liberty to decline one.
Never mind, I joined the company and completed the 6 months probation period as promised by my college to the company. I was performing well and also being paid well. But the developer in me was not happy with the kind of work I was doing. One should be passionate about their work which I wasn't. I did not find enough challenge in the work and I decided to quit.
I did not have a job in hand, I was back to the open market with huge competition. I had hope in myself and that hope got me a job in one of the renowned. The company was smaller as compared to my earlier company, even paid less than half of my earlier salary, but the company had better work. I was happy.

Lesson: Had I stayed in my comfort zone, I would not have got a job which I liked. Create your own destiny.

2. There are no shortcuts to success.

Sure I was happy with my new job, it had a lot of challenges, it had many new things I wanted to learn. But with that I had a lot of work and performance pressure. I was now into a much competitive world. I remember feeling myself in a pressure cooker always. Gold has to go through a lot of hammering to be converted to beautiful ornaments. Nothing different for humans either. I worked hard, I soaked all the pressure. It only made me stronger and a better performer.

Lesson: Don't step back when it comes to hard-work. It always pays back.

3. If you want to move up the ladder, create your own replacement.

Many of you will argue to this point but I have experienced it working well for me. If you are capable of moving up the order always make sure you create your replacement. If there is no one to replace you, you will never be released from your current responsibilities and free to accept new ones. You will be stuck doing the same work just because you are not replaceable. Now when you say you are not replaceable, you are just lying to yourself. Always remember anyone in this world can be replaced. It is just a temporary dependency which is making you important. Sure you may be paid slightly better than other but in the long run you are slowing down your progress by sticking to the same old responsibilities.

Lesson: Everyone can be replaced if need be. Don't flatter yourself.

4. Everyone who shits on you is not your enemy.

I had a team leader who always assigned me high pressure work. He made sure that I am never assigned a project which is straightforward. Sounds like an enemy right ? Not really though. Another way to look at it is, he always believed in me and made sure that my talent isn't wasted on simple projects, he exposed me to new challenges and responsibilities. All that just made me stronger and an all rounder. Additionally high pressure work is always high visibility work. I got recognition on my way towards successful delivery of these projects. Sure he had his own interests but it was a blessing in disguise for me.

Lesson: Don't be afraid to take up new challenges, if you succeed you have success but if you fail you still have experience.

5. Everyone who gets you out of shit is not your friend.

This is a very important lesson in life. Many of you might have experienced this personally. When you perform well you make too many friends. Not every friend is beneficial in life. Some are purely reaping benefit out of your friendship. I unknowingly created a very innovative utility while working on a project. For me, I just made my work easier by automating something but it turned out to be a big hit. A so called friend helped me polish the utility to make it slightly more generic and presentable, who knew the friend later claimed himself as the developer of that utility. I couldn't completely rule him out of the picture because he did make small changes in the utility. In the end I had to settle being a co-author of the utility for the 5% contribution he made towards it.

Lesson: When you are at the top, beware of whom you ask for help.

6. Failures are stepping stones to success.

1 month after joining my new company I had failed in an evaluation exam. The evaluation exam was to gauge our understanding of the most important technology used in my domain. I had tried my best but still I failed. Instead of nurturing the feeling of failure, I took it up as a challenge and here I am, leading the center of excellence team of that technology 6 years later. I am recognized in my company for my knowledge about the same technology which I failed to pass the evaluation exam.

Lesson: Everyone has their own pace of learning things. If you believe in yourself you are ought to be successful.

Do let me know your thoughts about my success story in the comments below. I hope you take a lot of inspiration from my story. Wish you all the very best for your story.

Inspired from the philosophical and motivational writings of @getonthetrain.