Leveraging Giants to Further your Career

I remember having absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I remember that was the way for most of my teens and twenties.

I've lost count of the number of different jobs I've had. I put it down to the fact that none of the jobs I had was fulfilling. I mean, I never got fired from a position; more tired of a job. I had a job as a fuel scheduler, and my shifts were four on, five off and vice-versa, and I remember that time learning HTML and CSS and building websites.

Then, I fell in love with the idea of open source.

‍

Something that the people control? How liberating! I even made a contribution or two. I wanted to know the ins and outs of these people-powered domains and set forth to learn Python, R, and SQL.

But I wish I had known what I know now back then.

You see, while the open-source community is a cornerstone of our technological development, it is difficult to make a decent living from these tools, especially when starting. I'm suggesting a change in focus, a shift in where the money flows.

(Hint, it's not flowing in the world of Python)

I wanted to maximise my career potential and ensure long-term success

I was looking for a career path at a low level of abstraction. I believed that the nuts and bolts were what would serve me. So what better way than to bury my head in code and master a language? Fast forward to today, and my abstraction level is much higher. I've abstracted from programming languages to a company.

Namely, Microsoft.

Don't get me wrong, Python is still essential, but I have found I used it far less than I set out to. What surprised me was that I had more success working within a commercial behemoth's space than in the open-source area.

Choosing to work with a giant opened up a world of opportunities and accelerated my career growth

Microsoft market cap - $2.282 Trillion USD (As of 2023) (Source)

Python Market Cap - $100.60 Million USD (By 2030) (Source)

Now I understand that I'm oversimplifying and using stats deceitfully (this should serve as a lesson to always peel back to curtain to expose deceitful data), but my point is the flow of money.

There is no flowing cash on Python's level - sure, it's a particular skill but a base skill. If you disagree with that, tell me, where do you deploy your Python code? If your answer is a commercial product, we're on the same page.

Go where the money goes.

SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, AWS, Google.

Aligning yourself with industry leaders can open doors and create a solid foundation for your career

I get about 4-5 messages on LinkedIn regarding Power BI jobs daily. However, I don't think I have ever received a message regarding a Python job.

Do you know why? Microsoft has a team of salespeople in every country. And they're not just any old team; they're a team of crack shots. How else did the entire Australian government become a Microsoft shop? How else did Excel, Word, and PowerPoint find their way into nearly every corporation on Earth?

Tell me, where are the equivalent teams spruiking Python?

So why would you base your entire career on a programming language?

Because it's cool?

If you could let me know how much cool it pays, maybe I'll try it out.