It's Over

Well, today was my last day working at LinkedIn.

You know, I was there when it was its hyper-growth stage. I was there when it was being acquired by Microsoft. I've been there longer than I've had my children. I've been there longer than I've been married.

I started at LinkedIn as a frontend person. Frontend was all I knew and I loved it. As time went on, I was exposed to what backend programming entailed but I didn’t try it—not because it was too much, I just hadn’t had a reason to dive in. One year, I was gunning for my promotion. My manager told me exactly what I needed to do to have enough impact to justify the promotion and I was determined to find a way.

At a team planning meeting, I volunteered for a project no one else could take on. After writing planning docs, coordinating with stakeholders, and presenting my RFC, I was ready to code—until a backend issue arose. My manager let me know "We don't have backend support for this. This project might not happen."

With my promotion in jeopardy, I had to think fast. I quickly said "Well, I can do the backend. Whatever." With questioning eyes, my manager asked "Have... you ever written backend code? Like this involves the midtier and the api layer." I confidently (and quite naively) said "No but you know, I'll figure it out. The worst case scenario is that this project is delayed a bit while I learn or... it never gets done. Everything goes through code review anyways. Nothing that bad will get into production."

After some discussion with senior managers and the product manager, it was agreed that I'd do this solo. I think the project was delivered in 4 months and I worked across 5 services altogether to make it happen. It was quite the learning experience. However, after all was said and done, I never looked back to the frontend as my main squeeze. I proudly said one day to my team "You know, I never want to do frontend work again. The backend is so much more fun. I'm going to be a backend engineer now, guys."

Of course, when it came down to it, I used whatever skills I had to do the work that needed to be done. But transformations like these are what dreams are made of. Just taking that one step forward into something completely unfamiliar is scary but it can also be extremely rewarding. Sometimes you just have to give yourself the chance and be confident that whatever happens, you'll be okay. You'll figure it out. Because you always do.

I'm choosing my destination now and choosing to try doing my own thing. Part of it is because I'm not ready to join another company. The other part is I've always wanted this. I've always wanted to work for myself. I've been craving this freedom to do something new and different. I am so very excited about what is to come but at the same time, I am also so very scared. However, I need to bet on myself here and give myself a chance. Success or failure, it'll be a learning experience and in the end, everything will be okay.