It Doesn't Get Any Easier

The title of this post says it all about the fields of software engineering, DevOps, and site reliability engineering. These fields don’t actually become any easier; they continually increase in complexity. This complexity can be due to increased needs, improper design, etc. We have all kinds of specialists in a specific area, as being a generalist is even more difficult. It’s funny how we specialize, but we keep these generic titles. I was reading some training books for cycling, and I came across the following quote attributed to Greg Lemond, the first and only American to win the Tour de France.

It doesn’t get any easier, you just get faster.

Greg Lemond

I think this statement is true in IT. We get more experience and we collect more tools, which make us faster at performing our jobs, but it doesn’t get any easier. I think this is why it’s extremely important to gain as much experience as you can. Some of that experience needs to be deep, like in a singular technology, and then it needs to also be wide, with as many different technologies as possible. As you gain width, you get faster at recognizing patterns, and as you gain depth in a single technology, you develop a better understanding, which also increases your width.

There isn’t an easy way to get better; you have to do the work. If you do the work, you will be successful.

Thanks for reading,

Jamie

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