(no subject)

[amazonv]

So i need goals for the coming year for work

for one i asked to stalk one of our teams, likely yellow so get a better idea of what is going on

the environment i currently work in, i have no idea what any of it is!

I used to be in charge of our environments, i was the keeper of dev, staging, pre-prod, prod

I was support levels 1-infinity
i managed to AD, the domains, the analytics the users - i was the system
I was the BA - i talked to customers and stakeholders, i wrote stories and planned features
I was UX
I was the DBA, i designed the database, hte procedures, the maintenance plans, the backups, the migrations, the scrubbings
i made the builds
i deployed the builds
i QE'd the code
I documented the environments, i memorized the IPs, the OS and patch level, the load balancers, the internal networks and connections, the firewall rules
I kept us PCI complaint

i wrote code

i was useful
i understood the customer, the environment, everything, holistically, where we wanted to go in the future

and then i burned

i want to feel useful again
i can not tell you how many noes we have
i think we just swapped from LBs to HAs
i think we have one cold and two hot deployments with GTMs
i think we have dev, staging, preview, preprod and prod

i dont know our security posture
i dont know what languages we are
i don't know our competition well

why am i even useful
what do i do
i am so...tiny, insignificant, replaceable

i took this company because it was the only one to offer
in two years of looking i rarely got callbacks and never once got an offer
next time i rename myself nick i swear to $diety and bought the domain
i got this company because i had insiders who knew me from years as a customer and made it happen
i worked in the world that was easy for me windows and MSSQL support
i was GOOD, i am not bragging, i was good
then stuff happened, micromanager, conflict, i hate micromanagers
i had to leave that spot, i liked 3rd but everyone trash talked third
then i was dumped
i had to leave town get away
i dont twinge in pain when he asks for help anymore, but i do feel sad
i took this job because it was closer to home
I took this job because it was one of the things i had done before and felt i could do again
i kept this job because i have an amazing team that is agile - not bullshitting, continuous automated testing and deployments and environment builds
but what do i do? i goto meetings, talk to teams, get their visions, try and distill it down to minimum viable project with tons of help from UX and my team - we try and stay small and light, so much to do and only so much time
this team wants people to have lives and passion outside work, it's amazing
but i am not a special skill, i can be replaced
what value am i? i dont have any idea whats going on
i miss being good at something, i miss understanding, adding value

Comments

[j00j]

You don't have to do everything or be unique to be good at your job and add value.

A lot of tech writers rightfully point out that being irreplaceable is a bad thing. It means you're doing too much and there's not enough redundancy in the system.

"i kept this job because i have an amazing team that is agile - not bullshitting, continuous automated testing and deployments and environment builds
but what do i do? i goto meetings, talk to teams, get their visions, try and distill it down to minimum viable project with tons of help from UX and my team - we try and stay small and light, so much to do and only so much time"

Those are actually difficult and important things to do. A lot of people I know struggle with those things. As someone doing a job somewhat similar to yours, I find some of those things easyish, but I realize other people can't do that kind of distillation, or they can't focus on the big picture.

Your knowledge and skillset might not be unique, but I bet you'd be *hard* to replace. Which, IMO, is preferable to the irreplaceable/all eggs in one basket scenario. It means you can take vacation...

Hugs.