7 Ways to Boost Your Confidence and Build Character (as a Data Engineer)
Easy Lessons to Develop Resilience
If there’s one thing people in tech can agree on, it’s this: confidence has a way of making you feel unstoppable.
You know, when whatever you do is magic. You knock out tasks left and right, solve problems without even giving it too much thought, people come to you for answers, and you have them. But confidence is a tricky thing.
It’s easily shaken, hard to hold on to and even harder to build up.
I come from the tech days where no one patted your back, no one gave you praise, and no one said ‘good job.’ Why? Well, that’s what your salary was for. A good job was expected, no excuses. If you messed up, you got nailed for it — simple. Confidence back then was hard-earned, but it sure built character.
I liked it that way. It’s made me resilient, self-reliant, and a hard worker. Too many people nowadays want everything handed to them, and if they don’t get it, they cry ‘anxiety,’ call in sick, and find excuses. But they fail to see that overcoming difficulty is how character is built and experience is earned.
Here are my lessons on confidence and character building.
1 — You will never be the best.
There is always someone out there better than you. Always. Come to peace with that, because it’s true. There’s always some old hand or newbie who’s doing things you never would have thought of — if they hadn’t done it first. Yes, that person is now AI. When you accept that, you can get down to business.
2 — Put the work in.
Work and work hard. That means putting in a shift every… single… day. At work and after hours, in your own time. It means making sure that when you lay your head down on the pillow each night, you can say, ‘I grafted today. I made my mark. I did my best.’ Knowing you put in the work each day builds character, and whether you know it or not, builds experience. It’s an obvious one, but a lot of people prefer the easy road.
3 — Positive Team.
The people you work with day in and day out matter — big time. This is a lesson that took me ages to learn (maybe because I was always in the wrong teams). You need to surround yourself with positive people, the ones who push themselves and lift up those around them. Great things happen when you are in a positive team; you all start to pull together, you feel invincible, and work becomes fun. Showing up every day isn’t a chore; it’s an opportunity to grow and get better.
4 — Build Experience.
Build things, tinker, experiment, fail, and try, try again. Find a dataset that interests you and create a full-fledged pipeline from it. Use Python, SQL, automate it with Airflow, build visualizations, make mistakes, Google, ask for help, and mess up. Then, do it all again. Doing this builds experience — real-life, hands-on experience. No one can take that away from you.
5 — Read a lot.
People at the top of their game in any field read. They read a lot. So should you. Read code; people out there are smart — crazy smart. Read their code. Reading other people’s code is like a doorway into their minds. See how others think. Coding is a craft, and to be a good craftsman, you should study other people’s work. And yes, you should read books, too, about programming, data modeling, and things to get you ahead of the pack.
6 — Be your own fan.
You know how far you’ve come and how hard you’ve worked; make sure you remember that. It’s easy to forget the struggles you went through. Celebrate your wins, track your progress, and be kind to yourself. This data engineering thing isn’t easy. You can’t rely on other people to pat your back and say ‘good job’ — you need to do that for yourself. Be your own fan.
7 — Do the scary stuff.
If you hide away from the things you are scared to do, you’re never going to get to where you want to be. You will miss out on huge learning opportunities. If you’re scared to do something, that’s a clear sign you need to do it, and do it now. It’s probably scary because it’s the unknown. Do the thing that you’re putting off. Yes, you will probably struggle. Yes, you will probably Google, and yes, you’ll probably ask for help. Put yourself out there and do the scary stuff. You will learn more.
That’s that…
I’ve had my ups and downs in this game. Loads of them.
It’s easy to look at other people, see where they are, and wonder, ‘Why is this so hard for me?’ I’ve been there. I’ve also seen people have an easier time of it too; it’s not fair, but such is life.
What I do know is this: those at the top of their game struggled on their path and probably still do. It’s not a straight shot to the top. Everyone’s path is different. If it were as simple as following someone’s roadmap to data engineering, then everyone would be an expert.
It’s about persistence, continuous learning, building confidence, and not being afraid to fail and learn from those failures. That is true growth in data engineering, or in any field for that matter. Your journey is unique, as is mine. Keep going.
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