5 Years in Tech: A Journey of Learning, Growth, and Becoming
13th July 2025 — Today marks 5 years since I officially started my career in the IT industry. It all began on 13th July 2020, when I joined Thoughtworks as a full-time Software Developer.
Since then, it has been a journey filled with countless moments of learning, growth, and self-discovery. A journey where I’ve had enough opportunities to explore different dimensions of myself. It wasn’t easy, but here I am — grateful that I made it, and proud of the person I’ve become.
This morning, as I realised I’m completing 5 years, a wave of memories came rushing back — a momentscape of experiences. I found myself reflecting on the lessons that have shaped me, helped me survive difficult days at work, guided me through decisions (both good and bad), and made me who I am today.
So here’s my attempt to document some of the best advice I’ve received along the way — lessons that have stayed with me:
Content is the king
This one came to me during my very first project.
Even after spending months on the project, knowing both the tech and business sides well, I found myself holding back in meetings. Especially after some senior folks joined the team. It’s strange how that happens — you know the stuff, but you still hesitate because you’re scared of sounding wrong in front of people who are more experienced.
One day, I was chatting with a senior colleague who had just joined the team, and he asked me: “Why don’t people, who’ve been in this project for long, speak up much?”
I thought about it for a moment and said, “Maybe it’s because of inferiority complex. Maybe we’re scared to say the wrong thing or we don’t think we can add much value as compared to more experienced people in the team.”
He smiled and said something that stuck with me: “Content is the king.”
It doesn’t matter who’s in the room — if you’ve done the work, if you know the context, if you understand the problem deeply, then your thoughts are valid. In fact, sometimes your ideas might even be more impactful than the ones coming from people who are just more experienced.
Since then, I’ve reminded myself: don’t stay silent when you know you can add value. Speak up.
Even if you can’t control everything, understand what’s right
There are times in your career when you’ll look at a situation at work and think, “This is going wrong. Why are we doing it like this?” But here’s the catch: you won’t always have the power to change it. Sometimes you’re just not the decision-maker. I’ve experienced this in multiple projects, with different clients, where I wasn’t the decision-maker and it felt frustrating when things didn’t go the way I believed they should.
I was once chatting about this to a mentor, and he gave me a different perspective to look at this. He said: “You can’t control everything. People make decisions based on what they know, what they’ve experienced, and sometimes factors you might not even aware of. It’s okay to feel things are wrong, but it’s important to still call out what you believe is right and learn from it.”
You might not always succeed in changing the decision. Sometimes your suggestion will be rejected. But that’s fine. Accept it, observe the outcomes, and learn from it. Keep track of the challenges the current path brings and how your idea might have helped. These observations will serve as valuable lessons to take better decisions in the future.
First do it, then do it better
This is one of my personal favourite — simple yet powerful.
In the tech world, there’s no such thing as perfection. If you chase it too early, you’ll end up stuck. The goal should be to solve the problem at hand in the best possible way with the information you currently have. Let the solution evolve over time as requirements change and new learnings emerge.
We did this once in a project that was super critical — deadlines were tight, things were on fire, and we had to stabilize it fast. We didn’t look for the perfect design or the cleanest code on day one. We made something work, and then iterated.
It wasn’t pretty at first, but it was functional. And once things calmed down, we improved it bit by bit.
Now whenever I get stuck chasing perfection too soon, I remind myself: “First do it. Then do it better.” [Progress > Perfection]
These 5 years have been a rollercoaster of learning, failing, building, unlearning, and growing. I’m still figuring things out, but I’m happy with how far I’ve come — and excited for what’s next.
If you’ve read this far, thank you! I hope it adds some value to your life.
