"Many a-times, brilliant young people join an organisation and want to start right at the top or at a glamorous role. They get aggrieved when they are not given the shiny, glamorous role that commands respect or gives social proof. This tends to result in them doing a poor job of whatever role they have been given.
I posit that we can learn from the Tesla story described above. Take the job and prove yourself once an opportunity presents itself. It might not be what you envisioned last year before the pandemic and lockdown. It’s important to get into the door and then set the standards to where you believe you belong."
I think Tesla was right, but the attitude issue reflects on the individual's mindset (in addition to the focus issue he aptly described). Some people will do any job to the best of their ability, whether it's sweeping the floors or managing a company; others will continually lust after the more prestigious position, and never accomplish the tasks at hand.
I'm your target audience, seeing as this year was my first year in the workforce and I'm young.
I don't see the point in trying to prove yourself in most situations, since most organizations have little opportunity.
I just quit my first tech job. The first team I was on had very little agency and was basically told what to do, the second team I was on had an "architect" who dictated how everything was going to be.
Without going into boring details, I was told by management and other team members I was doing well and it showed compared to most of the other Juniors I worked with.
I don't want a glamorous role, or one that gives me social proof. I just want to have some agency and the opportunity to take on responsibility and advance.
I found it easier to extend in Product Ownership direction. Resolving use cases with customers (like writing test cases against reference Excel computation, legacy SQL dump), filling stories, writing documentation. It results in natural leadership.
I don't know your story but I've been tech lead in a team with to many juniors, bad idea. I've struggled to give them agency, they were arguing about placing spaces and braces, there were cases of designing not so great API, mutating frameworks private variables and defending as "own vision". Promising juniors left, I've left.
Finding good team is hard. It is often ruined by management.
"Many a-times, brilliant young people join an organisation and want to start right at the top or at a glamorous role. They get aggrieved when they are not given the shiny, glamorous role that commands respect or gives social proof. This tends to result in them doing a poor job of whatever role they have been given.
I posit that we can learn from the Tesla story described above. Take the job and prove yourself once an opportunity presents itself. It might not be what you envisioned last year before the pandemic and lockdown. It’s important to get into the door and then set the standards to where you believe you belong."