This post is part of Series: Being a programmer again
Here’s how my career evolved:
- Programmer
- Team leader (programmers)
- Freelancer (custom software)
- Head of Software Development
- Support Engineer
- People Manager
- Head of Support
- ?
I’ve been lucky and privileged. I have worked for, and helped build one of the most legendary software companies, GitHub.
No matter how lucky I’ve been, though, I have to say I’ve worked hard. We have an ancient Greek saying:
Σύν Ἀθηνᾷ καὶ χεῖρα κίνει
It means:
God (Athena in this context) helps those who help themselves
So, yeah. Luck and all. But I haven’t been standing still. I have always kept moving and taking risk— in other people’s eyes. In my eyes? Risk is the opposite. Risk is when you stand still. When you get comfortable. When you stop growing.
That is not to say I’ve been job hoping. I may even argue the opposite. Here’s a list of all my employers and the number of years I stayed at each company:
- Logismos, 8 years
- Freelancing, 2 years (no record)
- ITS, 3 years (no longer around)
- GitHub, 9 years
- GitBook, 2 years
That’s not job hoping for sure. It’s me not being comfortable with getting comfortable. I could still be at Logismos. Or even GitHub. But it was my decision to leave in every single case.
I have spent the past two years at GitBook. A fabulous remote only company. I built and lead a support team from the ground up. I had the chance to build relationships with the Engineering and Product teams based on what I value. A support driven company, which is not always easy. Or even doable. With GitBook, we got pretty close.
There comes a time, though, when a person like me, wonders. What’s my passion? What do I want to do for the remaining productive years Athena has decided to give me? Am I comfortable? Is it time to do something else?
It turns out, my passion is not heading support teams, and being a people manager. My all time passion has been programming. I left it in 2010 when I joined GitHub. I want to get back to it now. A new adventure begins.
Yesterday, was my last day at GitBook. And I am now ready for my new adventure. I will talk about this in a couple of days. And I will keep talking about my experience with this sudden career turn. If you would like to lean more, you can subscribe below, and stay tuned!
What are you up to Petros?
Staying calm. Rust programmer wannabe, 2D retro style game dev wannabe, standup comedian wannabe. Check what I am doing now.