It's story time today.
In 2018, I was moved to a different team where I had to learn GraphQL. A lot of people were working with and learning GraphQL as well. But I decided to learn everything about GraphQL, even reading the spec.
I remember my Team Lead at that time had told me that I was taking too much time learning and going deep into the concepts when I could have used the time for development. Since I had a good relationship with my manager, I took this feedback to him and asked him whether I should consider it. He said, "Look, everybody sees people who slow down when there's a transition happening. But people who slow down and learn more go faster. So after four to six weeks, you deliver fast, and your team lead will understand."
That is exactly what happened. Since I had spent more time preparing myself initially, I could run faster later on. After some time, whenever anyone had questions, they would come to me for the solution. My team lead also recognized that the time I had spent learning GraphQL was time well invested, not just spent.
Today, most software developers think that their work is limited to sending PRs. But only when you go deep into your work, do you build a great level of expertise. You grow and make delivery faster. Then you can talk about it and help folks even outside of work.
I remember I talked about Graph QL at multiple conferences and also got invited to a podcast. For a year, I was also a Graph QL Working Group Member till I shifted to React Native. So, a lot of things came out of going deep, reading the spec, and understanding things clearly.
April 7th 2019
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When I talked about Graph QL, a lot of people didn't know that there is a Microsoft team, which is in Bangalore and is doing JavaScript with Graph QL which is so new. Wow! We think Microsoft is a big company and everyone knows about it. But not everyone knows about what is happening inside Microsoft. You can be the face of your team. You can be the face of your challenges and your work.
What I'm trying to say is to maximize your work. If you have to do something in your job, go deep into it. When you're going deep, you would spend time learning. Hence, your learning is taken care of. When you build something with that knowledge, take pride in it and go talk about it. Present and take workshops around it. So, whatever you do, you take one thing and maximize the output from it. All of this can happen if you spend that extra 10% effort. I always say, "Don't do the bare minimum, go the extra mile, learn for yourself, invest that time in your learning, and then go evangelize that."
Moral of the story: Maximize your work and build depth in whatever you are learning.
If you have been missing Tanay's letters, it's because Invact has been taking all my time. I even talked about what we are currently building and working on here in an Instagram Live yesterday. It has been extremely satisfying to launch multiple batches in a month, but jitna bhi try karo Tanay, life me kuch na kuch to chhootega hi.
That has been the story of my life for the past few weeks. However, that doesn't give you a reason to not share or subscribe to the newsletter. Get them directly in your inbox, and see you next time!
