Career tips I wish I'd known earlier

None of these are clever. The clever things rarely mattered. What mattered were a few boring habits that quietly compounded while I wasn't paying attention. Here are the ones I'd hand to a younger version of myself.

Optimize for slope, not intercept

Where you start matters far less than how fast you're improving. Pick the role, team, or problem that steepens your learning curve — even if the title or pay is a notch lower today. A year of fast slope beats three years of a flat, comfortable line.

Write things down

The act of writing forces clarity you can fake in conversation. Design docs, decision logs, even short notes-to-self — they make your thinking legible to others and to your future self. Most of the leverage I've had came from being the person who wrote the thing down.

Choose problems over titles

Titles are lagging indicators. Interesting problems attract interesting people and create the work that earns the title anyway. Ask "what will I get to build here?" before "what will I be called?"

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