GitLab Learning & Development, 16 Aug 2021

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From YouTube: Career Development with Christopher Wang

Description

Description: In this interview, Jacie Bandur on the Learning & Development Team interviews Christopher Wang, Senior Solutions Architect to learn more about what their career development journey has looked like. To ask Brittany any questions, check out the Async AMA issue: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/people-group/learning-development/programs/-/issues/13.

A

Hi, I'm jc bander on the learning and development team and I'm joined by christopher wong senior solutions architect here at gitlab. Today we're going to be talking about career development. So christopher, can you start off by telling us what your career development has looked like.

B

Yeah, do you mean uh in general, or do you mean here at gitlab.

A

um In general,.

B

A

B

Yeah, um my career development has been uh very fortuitous.

B

There's a lot of different things that happened in unexpected turns.

B

As an example like I was dealing with large health problems in my previous employer, and what ended up happening was that I got to a point in which I might have to quit my job, which is not exactly something that I really wanted to do.

B

But I remember just like sitting in my evening one night and uh I was just like praying through my situation- I'm a religious person, um so that's part of how I process things for god to basically send away so that I didn't have to quit my job um and then what ended up happening was that a door opened up here, which was not something that I was expecting. So I have a lot of stories like that in my life of unexpected jumps, um some intentional, some unintentional, but in general, that's.

B

My process is mostly following my inner voice and uh with a lot of prayer.

A

That's awesome. I love that you shared that so um kind of a little more off of that. What intentional steps have you taken throughout your career to get where you are today.

B

Yeah, that's a really great question. um I think that the number one thing that people really need to do is they need to seek excellence in whatever they're doing, even if it doesn't really look like this is directly going to line up with anything else.

B

I've seen so many people get promoted when they weren't expecting it simply because they built uh and established habits of excellence around them, and then what ends up happening is that the managers talk, the directors talk and it eventually trickles up to other levels as well, and so um I'd say that number one is just seeking excellence in everything that I do it's something that's extremely important for me, especially because I know that my role ultimately is to serve the group that I'm in and that's how I evaluate myself so having more of a service mentality versus like how can I get out of it?

B

I think, is really important and then also just building in excellence and letting your work do the talk for you. um So I think that that's one thing. I think that another thing is knowing yourself and following your inner voice. So this could be your second career could be your fourth career, but eventually your inner voice is going to tell you if you're moving in the right direction or not.

B

So, if you're getting bored, if you feel like you want something else and just having enough self-awareness to know like what the inner voice is and when to listen to it.

A

I think I think that was really great advice, but do you have any additional advice for team members who are working on their career development.

B

Yeah, I think that it's important to be upfront with your manager about what you're trying to do and what you're thinking.

B

Hopefully you have a good relationship with your manager and that's something that um it's just like one of those things where, if you have a good relationship with your manager, then they're going to try to set you up for success, especially if you are doing your role with excellence. That's why I start off with that.

B

um So I think it's important to be up front uh in the beginning of my career, I was very very uh like I never really liked the idea of selling myself to my management, so I would just like be the quiet worker that just like went in and went out. um I don't think that I've come to basically realize that there's limitations to that.

B

I think that you need to be transparent with your manager and the work and effect that it brings um in an honest way, but that's basically just allows your manager to have a better understanding of what their what each person is doing on their team right so trying to avoid like the selfishness trap, but doing it in a way that is sincere and authentic and also just helps management, make better decisions.

A

I think that's really great advice thanks for sharing that, um so those are all the questions I had for you today. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. I think this will be really helpful for get lab team members looking to grow here at gitlab.

B