GitLab Learning & Development, 9 Aug 2021

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From YouTube: Career Development with Nicolas Dular

Description

Description: In this interview, Jacie Bandur on the Learning & Development Team interviews Nicolas Dular, Interim Fullstack Engineering Manager to learn more about what their career development journey has looked like. To ask Nicolas any questions, check out the Async AMA issue: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/people-group/learning-development/programs/-/issues/10.

Check out the TED Talk Nicolas talked about on “Why you should make useless things”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0bsKc4tiuY

A

Hi, I'm juicy bander on the learning and development team here at git lab I'm joined by nicholas dular interim full stack engineering manager here at git lab and today we're going to be talking about career development. So nicholas. Could you start off by telling us a little bit about what your career development has looked like so far today,.

B

Sure, thanks jay-z, so yeah I I started early. um I started programming when I was like 13 14 years old. I tried to sell like website to some businesses back then and as a teenager, and then I suddenly became a freelancer while I was studying computer science in my 20s and in that time I worked as a front-end engineer, ux designer somehow and also completed products for clients and then after, like studying, I joined a small company with like less than four people, worked for a few worked there for a few years and left there.

B

When there were like 40 people there and yeah, then I joined get lab as a senior full stick engineer. Two years later, I became an interim engineering manager and what I want to emphasize with this story is that um I always had the goal to go into like a leadership position, but I knew that I needed to explore different areas before that. So freelancing, for example, taught me like how can I deal with ambiguity with clients and being a manager of one as well and how I can like coordinate different stakeholder opinions and yeah?

B

I'm doing also like a lot of studying by the site like computer science, um so it kept me on being time efficient in this. At this time, then joining this small company and growing to like 40 people.

B

It's I saw like the direct value I can bring as a single engineer to a customer and that I can like get a lot of responsibility to get a job done in like one role, so I was lucky to be trusted back then from my lead and so gitlab, then, is teaching me how I can be like how I work in larger organizations and how I can tackle problems that have a larger scope and impact so yeah. That's my career development. So far,.

A

That's awesome, thank you for sharing that. So, um as you have moved through your career, what intentional stunts have you taken to get where you are today.

B

Yeah, basically, none. I think everything only can be told backwards in my opinion, so I was never intentional about everything anything at all, so I I'm very picky about work, I'm not a good worker when I'm not motivated. So I usually ask myself like a few questions like um do. I still learn something on the job. Do I enjoy working at the company with the team?

B

Is the interesting interest that I have aligned with the company and what impact do I have and do I have potential to grow and if one of these questions is like a no I'm usually trying to consider changing a job and but and that this ensures me is that I never stop growing and I just grow and I'm head to the direction. I want to go because yeah these directions, like these questions, help me with that and yeah.

B

The rest of my career was basically luck, so I started only with rails, because my self-built php framework wasn't that nice and I googled web frameworks back then 10 years ago and rails popped up, and I got my first job just because I wanted some free startups rack and like nci minutes from from a startup back then in vienna and yeah just sparked some interested interest from someone else, and then I I got contacted by them and my next job.

B

I got because I was a coach at railscourse and I met my next manager and in gitlab. I just got reached out by linkedin, because I changed my job title from software engineer to full stack engineer and luckily gitlab was searching for stick engineers back then. So it's like it was poor luck in the end. um How I got to this- and nothing was intentional- and I love like there's this talk by simone gertz, um where she says like why.

B

I should make useless things, and I love that because she just does what she wants to do and it's like, maybe useless, but she learns so much by that and then do two coincidences. She goes goes along.

A

That's awesome: I will make sure to add the link to that video in the description of this video. So people can reference that.

A

So what advice would you have for team members who are working on their career development.

B

um Yeah find what makes you the most energized and excited every day when you go to work so communicate these goals to your manager, so they can find opportunities where you like, where they can arise so also look outside of what's planned in your area. Maybe you have something that aligns with your interest. That is not in the area. You're working in this could be like a side project.

B

A book club or some working group um so make these connections throughout the company and then there's also a formal part of this, where I'm very lazy at so document what you did before like document your success, so have this document ready when it's time for the promotion, um then a common pattern that I see is everyone wants to be ready when they start something, and I'm like just like- maybe too naive for this, but I usually start something before I investigate.

B

So some might want to read a book or watch a talk or have a workshop, how to be like the next role they want to get into, and I usually just started um and then later on, tried to read the up on the material, because it was easier for me to connect the dots so start when you're not ready.

B

So if you think you're not ready to be a manager, ask if you can lead a team meeting, if you not, you don't think you can lead some something already write a proposal with a good plan for something and yeah. Then, if you're, not, you don't think like you're ready for senior start helping others. So I think start when you're not ready is my general advice.

A

That's really great advice and thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. I think this information will be really helpful for gitlab team members that are looking to grow their careers. Sure thanks.

B