We Re Never Doing That Again

My first week at a new job, we deployed by zipping code on a laptop, dropping it on a server, unzipping it, and building it there. Then troubleshooting why the server's environment wasn't the laptop's environment until 10pm.

Walking out, I told my boss: "We're never doing that again."

We didn't.

People talk about "earning your place" before you speak up. And there's real nuance to reading a room, especially as a new person. But there's a difference between challenging someone's judgment and naming a broken process. The first one needs credibility you haven't built yet. The second one just needs you to be right and willing to do the work.

The engineers who build credibility fast aren't the ones who wait to be given permission. They're the ones who see a problem, say so clearly, and then fix it.

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