If I look back at those first six months at Scaleway’s lab and compare it to the other jobs I had prior to joining, there was a stark difference. Between the internships and the two full time jobs post graduation I had navigated at most two or three codebases in each position. All of them were in the same software domain.

There, at Scaleway, I had to navigate with almost a dozen different codebases. Each of them being in a different domain. From handling interrupts on a microcontroller to the boot sequence of an ARM chip. From modifying the linux operating system to writing software to handle coordination and external communication. Within six months I had to learn half a dozen hardware protocols and multiple ways of interacting with chips.
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It was a very intense period. I kept thinking I was not going to make it. I had joined with no prior experience in that area. It always felt to me that I was skating on very thin ice. Even though I was able to accomplish each task and solve each problem I did not feel confident. I kept telling myself : you are not fast enough, you don’t know enough. But, I kept doing my best at all times.
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In hindsight, this was imposter syndrome. My solution to fix that was to grow my skills and absorb as much knowledge as I could. I needed to accomplish more. I thought that at some point, with all the accomplishments confidence would appear.
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Ten plus years have passed between that time and writing this story. With the time distance I can make more sense of this. Manfred had co-opted me for the position not because of my prior knowledge or skills. He had chosen me to replace him because we had done many university projects together. He knew me. He knew I was relentless. He knew that I would not stop working on something until it worked. No matter how difficult it was, I would not stop.
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I picked up codebase after codebase, protocol after protocol, tool after tool and concept after concept. I had no choice. I had to grow myself in a similar way as a startup has to grow to launch a product and capture a portion of a market.
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I had to explore new knowledge territories and gain sufficient mastery of them in a very short period of time. It was both very tiring and very exciting.

I didn’t think this was going to last over time. Boy was I wrong. My next tasks proved to me that the boundaries were ever expanding.

If you have missed it, you can read the previous episode here​

To pair with :

• Night Knuckles - Clark
• Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling