Some lessons in life I've been fortunate enough to learn quickly. Others, not so much. The good news is that I always come around. When I started my current job, I was preoccupied with the technical work. How could I not be? Our modern technical scene emphasizes pure sweat above all else; I couldn't see how any other skills mattered. But I failed. I failed to see how systems connected, went narrow before I went broad, and frustrated those around me in doing so. My justification? The work was getting done. It didn't matter if the code was hacked together; it worked and got the job done.
"Move fast, break stuff," I told myself.
Those around me tolerated my naivety, but I did not tolerate it myself. I would spend hours after work spiraling about the mistakes I'd made. I grew fearful of asking questions. My manager sat me down one day, not disappointed in my performance but sensitive to my frustrations. He told me, "Colton, we don't care how long it takes you. We want the work done right; you're only three months in, for god's sake."
I realized that I was approaching the problem all wrong. Working quickly is a product of working slowly and building comprehension. Our codebase, all 200,000+ lines of code, was not going to be understood in a sprint. I finally learned that slowing down is hard. College taught me to speed up.
Where am I now?
I have only begun to understand that coding at an enterprise scale takes patience and a detailed eye. There's no Cursor, Claude Code, or TA to help you through the steps of an involved ticket. I've learned to estimate my tasks correctly, plan for the time it will take to write tests, update documentation, and verify ticket completion in air-gapped environments. I learned that while it's okay to ask questions, you cannot ask for comprehension.
Learn when to be fast, and when to take your time. The rest will come on its own.
Hang in there, you've got this.
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