Well things worked out for you and they have worked out for me as well. For a long time I have this arrogance expressed privately usually to myself or very close people that it is all due to hard work, diligence, thrift that I reached where I am today.
But lately after reading and observing around quite a bit I come to realize due to being ended up in a fast growing sector at least a minimum level of success was guaranteed. I see same thing at my company where a lot of VPs, Sr VPs and above reached to that level primarily they started a decade or two earlier than me and growth was much faster than compare to when I joined in mid 2000s.
They can talk down to me just like I can talk down to more juniors about value of hard work, drive and so on. However, joining a growing sector early was best thing career wise. No amount of hard work will help if one is starting at a middling IT job in middling company in 2025 like I did in 2005.
> a lot of VPs, Sr VPs and above reached to that level primarily they started a decade or two earlier than me
Not refuting your point but there is a selection bias here. You are in contact with people who did in fact achieve VP or higher levels. Lots more also joined the industry 10 or 20 years before you and burned out, failed, hated it, got fired, whatever. The people who succeeded may not be particularly exceptional in terms of talent, brainpower, innovative thinking, etc, (lots was luck, or being in the right place at the right time, surely) but it's also not true that everyone they worked with back then became a big success.
Well, and even the company matters. I was in IT since post-grad school (with a bit of engineering earlier). But with dot-bomb, a company that struggled through and then 2008, I was only in an "OK" position. It was really the period post 2010 that set things up a lot better.
Indeed. For me 2010-11 was when I got a full-time job as compared to contracting (small time) which was big jump for me in terms of job quality and money. Interesting enough I met many people who joined Amazon in same time frame and earning about 50% more than me in straight first job that I earned after with 8-10 years of experience. So yeah company part is important.
I wouldn't even say it was work quality; the job I had for a good period really set me up for my ultimate full-time job and I mostly liked it. But that ultimate job was a public company and even if not FAANG level comp, set me up pretty well and provided the leverage to make investments that were pretty solid during that very good period.
But lately after reading and observing around quite a bit I come to realize due to being ended up in a fast growing sector at least a minimum level of success was guaranteed. I see same thing at my company where a lot of VPs, Sr VPs and above reached to that level primarily they started a decade or two earlier than me and growth was much faster than compare to when I joined in mid 2000s.
They can talk down to me just like I can talk down to more juniors about value of hard work, drive and so on. However, joining a growing sector early was best thing career wise. No amount of hard work will help if one is starting at a middling IT job in middling company in 2025 like I did in 2005.