By doing freelance work, I was able to get different experiences on various of different problems and grew my context via various cases. My perspective grew widely from different experiences. This has helped me immensely to do my full-time roles a lot better.

By doing projects for clients I learned the importance of:

• successful planning,
• clear communication,
• managing expectations.

And especially learned the importance of understanding the business side. It’s important to clearly understand that we as engineers are here to provide as much business value as possible.

By doing coaching and mentoring I:

• learned the importance of empathy,
• learned how to properly help others,
• cemented my knowledge on various of different topics while helping others.

I was doing this even before I grew to my first managerial role. So this has helped me a lot when I first started managing others in my full-time role.

By doing consulting and advising I:

• grew my perspective,
• learned about various of different problems that companies were facing,
• enhanced my creative problem-solving.

Seeing and understanding various problems that companies/projects have faced and advising solutions to those problems have been one of the biggest growth factors for me. Because of this alone, I was able to do my management roles a lot better.

What are your thoughts?

This is part of the newsletter article on my Engineering Leadership newsletter. If you liked this, you are going to love my newsletter. Join here: Engineering Leadership newsletter, 14.2k+ engineering leaders are already reading it!