One of the hardest parts about moving to the enterprise space, particularly one as complex as virtualization, was that I knew nothing about it. The farthest I had ever gotten was a class called Computer Organization and Architecture that was a pre-requisite in my sophomore year of college. I vaguely remember learning about instruction sets and I/O modules; most of it went over my bleary-eyed head at the time. My work as a software engineer was much higher up in the stack compared to where VMware operates; I’d compare it to having a general idea of how the human body operates as opposed to the inner workings of a single human cell.
It was intimidating as well (and honestly, it still is). Some of the smartest brains in the world work in Silicon Valley, and that is even truer at VMware. As a new product manager fresh out of college, I was surrounded by PhDs that knew far more about my own product areas in vSphere than I could ever hope to. Even my customers knew more than I did! Regardless, after two years in business school, my brain was itching for intellectual stimulation and I welcomed the challenge. I watched online training videos, read a crap ton of books, and some really dry product documentation. Initially, I wasn’t processing much of it. I was reading and listening to the words, but I couldn’t really gather what they meant. I wondered if it was a lost cause, but the human brain and how we learn amazes me.
After a few months of sitting in meetings, hearing words but not really understanding them… I suddenly began to piece things together. Things I had read months ago made their way back to the forefront of my mind. It started to make sense! Every email, conversation and meeting since has only served to fill my chest of knowledge. The same thing happened when I started to learn about Kubernetes. In the beginning it was a jumble of words that sounded familiar but made no sense. Now I can converse somewhat intelligently about it and I’m hoping that my second KubeCon will fill in all the other gaps. This diagram though is scarily accurate.
In any case, my imposter syndrome comes and goes in waves depending on where I am in the process of learning. It’s still hard for me not to second-guess myself when in a room full of people that have been around for much longer than I have—trusting that I’ve put in the work to really know my shit doesn’t come easy, but I’m working on it. It also helps to have supportive teammates that you can rely on for a save in case you fumble, and I’ve been fortunate in that area.
Nevertheless, it’s always scary to start from scratch but personally, I’ll always take it if it gives me the opportunity to learn something new.