In 2019, I attended The Lead Developer conference in Austin, Texas. I had been to professional conferences before, but this one was different for two reasons. First, I was a full-time IC who had repeatedly told his boss I had no intention of ever managing people. Second, while the conference was inclusive of many roles and the title itself was “Lead Developer,” this was the first conference I attended where a particular technology was not the main focus. I was immersed in a sea of people who wanted to lead others and do that job well.
At this moment in time, I was happy where I was. I liked the challenge of my work and the satisfaction of building things and reworking systems to fit the business needs. But I was quietly starting to question my “I won’t manage” mantra. At a certain point on the IC journey, impact becomes more about influencing groups of people than building things yourself. I was starting to become more aware of how other people perceived me or my work and how that changed–for better or worse–my ability to get things done.
Just before this, I’d spent a few months interning as a coach at my Crossfit gym. I never excelled at Crossfit, but getting into Olympic weightlifting had rekindled a desire for challenge and self-improvement that had been dormant since high-school track.
In high school, I was a pole vaulter. The best pole vaulters are tall, but I was short. Still, I was also skinny and decently strong, which translated to some success. I qualified for the State meet three years in a row and placed third senior year. Like Olympic weightlifting, pole vault is an individual sport but one that is intensely mental.
I’ve never identified as competitive, but weightlifting brought back that desire to work hard and devote intense focus to practicing patterns of movement until they become automatic. Through my brief stint as a coach, I got to experience what it was like to challenge individuals and celebrate as they accomplished things they didn’t think they could do. I got to play a small part in them discovering a passion for self-improvement. And I was hooked.
At another conference I attended a year earlier, Nicholas Means gave a talk about the Eiffel Tower and explained how Gustave Eiffel wanted to build something that would last. That idea has stuck in my brain ever since. Some days I’m still helping plan part of a product that’s been around for over 20 years, but most days I’m building people.
I had a 6:30am flight out of Austin on my way back. As I sat down at my gate, tired from a short night, I watched a mom and dad wrangling three young children. It was obvious these kids were tired and cranky, but their parents were extraordinarily patient as they scrounged up some airport breakfast for their crew. When it was time to board, I plodded down the jetway, thinking about how supportive those parents were, knowing that in the moment that job was clearly hard as hell. I started thinking about legacies and what I wanted mine to be. For now, I’ve decided if I can help people achieve their goals, that’s a good place to land.