The company was acquired by a private fund and, after the
stock vesting was accelerated early this year, many chose to
leave. Four new engineers, including me, joined around Jan
2017. At the time of writing, only yours truly was left.
Jumping ship is normal in Silicon Valley and I have done my
share (four jobs in eight years). Over time, however, my
zest in finding a great new job has died. Looking back, I
have come to America, survived, and settled. Although work
is still important and I still give it my best, I have arrived at
a point where I start to renounce the version of success the
world has fed me and set out to define my own.
Near product release, we have been snowed under with bugs,
software defects made during coding. Although my code was
not particularly buggy, I have been assigned more than half
of the urgent ones.
I own up to bugs from my code, when they inevitably appear,
but they don't represent me. I compliment my colleagues, try
to understand, joke about my mistakes, and I don't feel
ashamed at all. (As grandma used to scold me: 没皮没脸.)
As I see it, errors are information, small doses of failure are
essential for the system to be anti-fragile, and the bugs are
part of the game. They have a right to be here.
Under urgent issues blocking the release, I have slept very
well this weekend and lost weight. Thank You!
