How to stand out in a fast growing tech company

My first day in satoripop was 1st April 2015 as the #10th employee of the company and my last day is exactly 4 years and a day later. I was nominated for best employee of the year in 2016, got the prize in 2017 and became a team leader of 10 developers in 2018. In the last 4 years I learned 7 important, brutal, and fun lessons.

1. Trust is a shared duty

I still remember my interview for an internship in satoripop. Mr. Fredj, the CEO asked me: “Have you ever worked with HTML, CSS or JS?” My answer was “No” to all of them. Like in all of my previous +20 failed interviews, I gave the promise to show motivation, hard work, and catch up with my peers. What made me get the internship in satoripop was a mutual trust between me and the company! Mr. Fredj had nothing else than my word and I had his word to teach me and support me. Use your interview promises as your biggest motivation!

2. Don’t try to impress by playing the hero

The first mistake you may make is play the hero by :

• Trying to learn everything by yourself and never asking for help
• Trying to hide or disguise that you don’t understand what everyone is talking about in a meeting
• Spending hours on a bug, ending by loosing your time over a known issue by the team

Either you’re talking with a superior, a team member or your intern, don’t fake it. Asking questions will only bring answers. Saying you don’t know will only make you humble.

3. What framework or language should you learn?

At first, I was eager to learn NodeJS, then I learned AngularJS, then came React. Suddenly! I started to see the same pattern everywhere. It was JS principales and best practices. The framework didn’t matter anymore. I understood that if I knew the core principles of JS I could work with any JS framework.

I tried to learn python for my internship at TwitterSF. I had +12 hours to get from Tunisia to San Fransisco. I was anxious by the limitation of time. As I started reading a book and python documentation on the plane I realized: It’s just a different way to write algorithms.

The realization may sound obvious. But I think we focus too much on which and which and we forget it’s just tools. If you can’t solve complex problems, knowing how to code a queue of jobs in PHP or having 10 frameworks in your skill CV section is worthless.

Work on your solving problems skill to stand out!

4. Be curious about “Behind the scenes” of coding

“Why the feature we worked so hard on was delayed? Why don’t we invest more time on refactoring a code that is giving us all so much pain?”

Some technical decisions will sound obvious when you listen more to what the Product owner aims, what the clients wants and what the customer success need.

Wasting your time on searching how to implement a “cool feature” that gets no revenue and brings no plus to the user may be very fun for your personal experience but it will not make you stand out. I’m not saying to never do it. Have some fun from time to time, but don’t over do it and expect recognition.

5. How to handle conflicts

We are 11 billion on this planet. Flash news: not everyone is nice and conflicts happen often in a workplace. Either a moody colleague or a client from hell, you’ll have to face them and for that I’ve discovered 4 rules:

• Assume positive intent: avoid getting offended by stressed and tired colleagues who wasn’t having a good day or just didn’t see your last skype message
• Pause and say it once: Pausing in a conversation makes the other side intrigued by what you will say next. You’ll have higher chance to be listened to. Saying the same thing multiple times makes you inconsistent and hesitant. Say it once clearly. They heard you!
• Ask for clarity: not everyone has great communication skills. Make sure that you completely get their issue before debating if they are right or wrong.
• You don’t need to be strong: One advice I got a lot after facing raging clients who like to throw insults “You’ll get used to it! Stay strong!” Worst advice ever! You won’t grow a thicker skin. You don’t need to be strong, you need to be respected. Make it clear for your clients and reach out to your superior for help and guidance.

6. Leadership is not about dominance

I became the tech lead of one of satoripop projects when it was facing some difficulties. Other then trying to get the work done and goals met, I had to gain the team trust. Everyone (PO, Devs and CS) was angry or not satisfied because of some issues on the project.

To be the leader that my team expects, I discovered 3 steps:

1. Be curious: Listen to your team problems and expectations. If your team members are “shy”, it’s probably because of you. “I’m shy” is just another way to say “You’re making me uncomfortable”. Some prefer a one to one talk. Be flexible!
2. Clarify: Not everyone has a full vision of the situation. Present the project constraints and issues. Explain, explain and expain.
3. Ask for help: Your team may have solutions or ideas. Ask them how they can help.
4. Action: This is the most important step. This step says ACTION and not answers! Keep in mind that when developers ask questions, they are not expecting answers but an action item that they (or you) can do to solve the issue. Always try to get out with small or big actions after a conversation and make sure that they will get done. “There there” won’t get you far in your leadership title.

7. Your right to stand out

I’ve been blessed to work on a company that promotes its employee to their best. In multiple occasions, I got a lot of support either for daily tasks, participate in the Techwomen program and even recommending me after submitting my resignation.

An employee can only stand out when the company give him the space and opportunity to. satoripop surely did it for me!

I would like to end this blog post by thanking my amazing mentor at satoripop Mr. Tarek Morgéne for always being patient with me and for all his great efforts to make the developer I became. Also Mr. Khaireddine Fredj for his huge support during the last 4 years. And last, all my friends in satoripop and Quicktext AI for being there for me and for sharing with me their delicious snacks.