<commit_before>Today I want to talk about experience and seniority and, tangentially, the
value of labels. This is inherently subjective, and so I will skip all of the
false sense of objectivity and unabashedly talk about me. Let’s start by going
full disclosure about what my experiences are and who I am. Tell me if you are
surprised; I’m always interested in knowing who people think I am if they only
know my writing or work.

## The dude behind the code

I’m 24. I started to program five years ago. I come from a humanist-musical
high school, and I learned five foreign languages in school—Latin, Ancient
Greek, English, French, and Spanish. I also learned to play the guitar there,
but our science education was not as advanced as would be desirable. I was sure
I’d take Psychology in university. I did for a year, and hated it.

When I got over the depression you develop when you fail at life for the first
time, I traveled Europe for a month with a friend of mine who was going to
study Acting at a prestigious school in Berlin. I decided to follow him on a
whim, and started to study Applied Computer Science in Berlin as well.

Now he is an accomplished actor, and I am a—supposedly senior—computer
scientist. Yet neither of us feel like we have arrived.

I was never in my life a junior developer, at least on paper. I started out as
a research assistant, then freelanced for a while, and suddenly I was in the
senior track. I haven’t had a single internship.

Does that seem like the life story of a senior engineer to you? Yeah, to me
neither. Yet, because I have a fairly public profile through this blog and the
software that I write, people tend to assume that my experience is richer. I
was fortunate enough to write open source software ever since I had my first
job, and I built a portfolio while getting paid for it. Not much, mind
you—being a research assistant isn’t the most profitable job in the world—, but
I had a lot of freedom to pursue budding interests. And university is almost
free in Germany, which helped tremenduously, since I had to support myself
somehow.

Then I freelanced for half a year, and gathered an insight into business while
still honing my skills. Of course I still was pretty junior at this point—but
then again, I still feel like I am. This, and my public profile, led to an
offer to be a senior software developer at a startup. Soon I became the
de-facto lead, and had to manage people.

That venture collapsed, and I found a follow-up job at a friend’s company. I
had worked with them in the past, and was happy to join them full-time. This
is how I ended up at [Port Zero](https://port-zero.com), and I couldn’t be
happier.

The bottom line is that I stumbled from one happy gig into the next. Not
everyone is that lucky, and trying to tell anyone how they should approach
their careers would be delusional.

So I’m going to continue ranting instead.

## Manufacturing experience<commit_msg>wip: experience is a mess<commit_after>Today I want to talk about experience and seniority and, tangentially, the
value of labels. This is inherently subjective, and so I will skip all of the
false sense of objectivity and unabashedly talk about me. Let’s start by going
full disclosure about what my experiences are and who I am. Tell me if you are
surprised; I’m always interested in knowing who people think I am if they only
know my writing or work.

## The dude behind the code

I’m 24. I started to program five years ago. I come from a humanist-musical
high school, and I learned five foreign languages in school—Latin, Ancient
Greek, English, French, and Spanish. I also learned to play the guitar there,
but our science education was not as advanced as would be desirable. I was sure
I’d take Psychology in university. I did for a year, and hated it.

When I got over the depression you develop when you fail at life for the first
time, I traveled Europe for a month with a friend of mine who was going to
study Acting at a prestigious school in Berlin. I decided to follow him on a
whim, and started to study Applied Computer Science in Berlin as well.

Now he is an accomplished actor, and I am a—supposedly senior—computer
scientist. Yet neither of us feel like we have arrived.

I was never in my life a junior developer, at least on paper. I started out as
a research assistant, then freelanced for a while, and suddenly I was in the
senior track. I haven’t had a single internship.

Does that seem like the life story of a senior engineer to you? Yeah, to me
neither. Yet, because I have a fairly public profile through this blog and the
software that I write, people tend to assume that my experience is richer. I
was fortunate enough to write open source software ever since I had my first
job, and I built a portfolio while getting paid for it. Not much, mind
you—being a research assistant isn’t the most profitable job in the world—, but
I had a lot of freedom to pursue budding interests. And university is almost
free in Germany, which helped tremenduously, since I had to support myself
somehow.

Then I freelanced for half a year, and gathered an insight into business while
still honing my skills. Of course I still was pretty junior at this point—but
then again, I still feel like I am. This, and my public profile, led to an
offer to be a senior software developer at a startup. Soon I became the
de-facto lead, and had to manage people.

That venture collapsed, and I found a follow-up job at a friend’s company. I
had worked with them in the past, and was happy to join them full-time. This
is how I ended up at [Port Zero](https://port-zero.com), and I couldn’t be
happier.

The bottom line is that I stumbled from one happy gig into the next. Not
everyone is that lucky, and trying to tell anyone how they should approach
their careers would be delusional.

So I’m going to continue ranting instead.

## Manufacturing experience

It is hard for most of us to market ourselves. Even the word sounds icky. Once
you reach the promised land, experience will speak for itself—or so we think. If
you can articulate your experiences clearly and honestly, though, without over-
or underselling it, your peers and your prospective employeers will be
grateful. I’m in a lot of interviews and preliminary meetings where I have to
explain myself—it comes with the territory as a consultant, I think—, and I
learned to realize how important all of the skills surrounding our jobs are.

I hate having to justify myself, but I’m very visibly young, and some people
I work with do not jive well with that, especially if I am above them in
hierarchy. Pure skills don’t help as much as I hoped early in my career; noone
likes a whiz kid. You have to bank on emotional maturity, organization, and
hard work—in yourself, not in others.

That’s not a recipe for success. I hear stories of failure, even about outright
bullying in the work place, from who I consider very mature and skilled people.
But it helps, or so I hope.

If you land a few lucky projects, you might gain experience and create a
portfolio while doing it, like I did. That’s partially due to me being
selective about the kinds of companies I work with, but mostly sheer chance.

## I won’t tell you what to do

I feel like this blog post is a bit of a mess. I’m hesitant to give anyone
general advice; I’m just not cut out for that. But I wanted to write this
anyway, because at the very least I believe you deserve to know who it is
that you’re reading blog posts from.

And who not to get career advice from.
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