I canāt remember the first conversation I noticed, but someone reached out to this community and asked if sharing what theyāve learned in tech would be worthwhile? This is my answer. And, itās yes.
Hereās why I share my experience:
If you find ways to share your tech journey, what are your reasons for sharing?
A big thing for me is representation.
I want young people that look like me to see that this a viable career to pursue.
I feel some responsibility to be a role model and achieve things that my parents didnāt (I think children of immigrants can sometimes feel this pressure).
Iāve ended up connecting with some great people through sharing my journey so itās definitely been worthwhile!
I think you may have shared the wrong link, as it tries to open Gmail.
I like Eamonās idea of sharing for representation; thatās super important.
A lot of it for me is about learning. I actually wrote about what I call āthe rabbit poop approach to learningā a while ago: The Rabbit Poop Approach to Learning | Cassandra HL
In sharing my journey and experiences, I hope not only to help and inspire others, but to solidify my own learnings, organise my thoughts, and create reference materials. I very often refer back to my own posts for my own work, and Iām always glad to have documented things.
There is no more powerful learning tool in my opinion than sharing your experience. āTo learn is to teachā.
I donāt really have any other motivation other than that. Iāve learned to not share looking for validation of my experiences - I may have been guilty of that when I was younger.
Nowadays, If it helps someone, brilliant, Iām over the moon. If people respond by sharing a different perspective, I take the time to take it in and respect it. Even if you donāt adopt that perspective, just knowing that perspective is out there for good reasons is a good learning.
Thank you for pointing that out Cassandra! This is fixed.
For me, I genuinely enjoy it.
Iāve committed to write about community building since 2020 (via Rosieland) and itās really been the best way to help me process my thoughts, it is when I write that I find (more) clarity.
I canāt imagine not showing up to write now. Iām at almost 700 posts now!
With one lens on I take the ā1 person on the planetā approach.
As in, if I share something it might have a positive impact on at least one person on this planet. I may never meet that person or hear positive feedback yet thatās not the point. It doesnāt matter when it can have an impact on someoneās life and the lives of the people around them.
The bonus is if I get to meet that person and we can collaborate over something shared, then all the better!
I like to share my experiences to really show that anyone can do what they set out to be.
I never graduated college, I have no formal training and yet Iām the only quality architect at my place of work, leading change and altering career paths for many while introducing new techniques, practices, trainings and processes.
Sure, would have all that extra training have helped? yeah. But now I have a totally different thought process stepping into situations, and totally different view point which has really benefitted me.
So I like sharing so that others know itās attainable if you put the work in.
2 reasons
@jmosley5 In tech, your value grows when you can not only do the work but also articulate it, teach it, and shape how others understand it. Sharing what I have learned sharpens my thinking, deepens my understanding, and builds credibility
Document in public, means it travels with me and helps others too.
Sharing is how I turn what I do into something I master
The more I do, the more interesting it becomes. The feedback, the conversations, the people it brings into my orbit and that is meaningful and powerful stuff 
It would be great, if there were more testers.
I like learning by teaching.
For me there is a certain thrill to determine elmentary building blocks and building new ideas.
Source for people who like testing (and juggling)
Sharing what I learn or achieve is, above all, a way to prove to myself that Iāve made progress, that Iām moving forward. If I donāt share it, I feel like it loses its meaning, as if I hadnāt done anything at all. This sharing becomes tangible proof for myself, a way to make my efforts real and to bring to life what could have stayed abstract 
Itās a bit like the drawings of mammoths and life scenes left by prehistoric humans on cave wallsā¦these works testify to their presence, their experiences, and their knowledge, turning what might have been forgotten into an enduring trace of their existence 
I love the idea that we are participating in the same practice as our ancestors. Iām going to meditate on this today.
I think sharing journey in tech can make a person relatable to those who are also in the same point in their path.
It has the potential to connect people who can discuss the journey with, which I think is a good thing! 
For me, there are two distinct activities with two distinct answers.
One is participating in user communities, like this forum. I mostly approach them with goal of answering questions; participating in discussions is secondary. Answering questions is fulfilling - it just feels nice to help someone. It also gives me wider perspective and allows me to encounter problems outside of my immediate work. You never know when some detail, insight or lesson might be useful. Being expert is largely about breadth of experience, and collectively we can encounter many more problems than each of us can alone. Even if all these upsides are only hypothetical and never realize, itās still better use of time than doomscrolling social media platforms.
Second is writing articles and publishing them on my blog. Thatāsā¦ a bit of something I have always done. I started my first blog when I was 16. I had personal blog. I had anonymous blog I used as playground for writing itself. I had āprofessionalā blog about specific software, which had about 20K unique visitors a month. Now I have āpersonal brandingā blog where I write about testing and tech. I donāt have a grand plan for it, it didnāt help me to secure new engagements of any type so far. But I do it, in part because I feel like I have always done it. Some people spend their time crocheting, I write a blog 
I have been sharing my journey because it helps me think through what I have been learning, and so helps me learn and also to share what I have learned.
I would take the idea even further.
I like the idea that weāre engaging in the same practice as our ancestorsāand that what we do now can shape the future by passing it on to the generations that follow