What I mean by working harder

I work harder than anyone I’ve ever worked with or for.

When I say that, I’m thinking about the effort I put into understanding the work, taking responsibility for it, and pushing it forward until it’s complete. That pride in my work started long before I became a developer.

If you’re a junior developer wondering whether working harder is worth it when you don’t expect to get paid more for it, I want to explain why I still believe work ethic matters. It has helped me move forward from my first job through the Army and into software.

I was fifteen when it started paying off

Growing up, we didn’t have much. I watched my parents struggle, and I think that made me want to work hard to earn money.

My first job was at a local butcher shop. They weren’t hiring. I told the owner I would do whatever he needed.

He started me off painting the stairs and ramp in front of the building. Then I helped stock things. Eventually, he hired me to work in the hot foods section making fried chicken.

I showed up and put in the work. I learned every part of the business, outperformed the adults, and became the go-to person. I was reliable even when some of the adults weren’t.

After I’d spent some time proving myself, the owner offered to teach me how to be a butcher. I would go in before school and help him cut meat for the case. After school, I would fry chicken and help customers.

When I dropped out of high school at sixteen, I became the full-time meat cutter. I worked there until I joined the Army at twenty. In between, I became a dad at eighteen.

Over my time at the shop, a lot of employees came and went. I trained many of the adults who came in: how to run the cash registers, fry chicken, clean up, work with the meat, and help customers.

I took pride in being counted on.

I continued getting pay raises, too. Showing up, learning the business, and putting in the work was helping me move forward.

That’s the pattern I see when I look back: I offered to help, learned the work, and became someone who could teach it to other people. Taking on more of the business gave the owner more reasons to count on me.

The responsibility kept growing

In the Army, hard work continued to help me progress. I advanced in rank faster than others and was quickly placed in leadership positions. Being someone people could depend on continued to matter to me.

I was also taking college classes while serving in the Army.

Taking the initiative led me into software

When I became a training developer in the Army, I saw an opportunity to improve a cumbersome administrative tool. I started learning VBA and Microsoft Access and built a system with a user interface that made the work easier and faster.

That was software development before I had a software job. I saw something that needed work and started learning what I needed to improve it.

As I was preparing to leave the Army, I heard about the Microsoft Software and Systems Academy. I spent the next six months in an intensive boot camp environment. That led to my first software job.

The transition was a big change, but taking the initiative and putting in the work was already familiar to me. Those habits had helped me learn a trade. Now they were helping me move into a different career.

What I’d tell a junior developer

Start with what you can practice in the work you already have. Show up and put in the effort. Learn how the work fits together. Be willing to step into something unfamiliar and take responsibility for moving it forward. Learn it well enough that you can help someone else do it.

Those are the habits behind my claim about working harder. They helped me become someone people counted on, take on leadership responsibilities, and eventually move into software.

That’s my experience. It doesn’t mean every employer will reward your effort with more money. But I wouldn’t tell someone starting out to give up on building the habits that helped me progress.

Wanting to get paid was part of where this started. I also take pride in my work. I care about understanding what I’m responsible for and staying with it until it’s complete.

I want to be the person people can count on to see it through.