Craftsman vs Entrepreneur - Invest in the Right Path for You (From L8 SWE at Microsoft)

Your channel is very underrated. You deserve thousands more subscribers and likes. I'm not in your field of work, but I can apply your content to my career. Thank you, Kun!

Hi Kun, I have a question about how to build a supportive or positive colleague network. One of my coworker seemed to distance me due to some misunderstanding — I was sick for a while and took a few months leave, but he thought I’m a coworker who slacks off. Anyways, my relationship with this coworker was pretty friendly, and I would like to collaborate on a project with him if no hostage going. I hope to ask for any advice if it’s a good idea to directly clarify with my coworker about my sick leave, or generally, how much effort shall we put in maintaining good communications with coworkers? Thank you and really enjoy this video, as usual :)

Hi, Awesome content and really helpful!! I am 37 yo and I thinking to change career and switch to software engineering. I did computer science degree but never worked as SWE. After graduation, I worked for my dad company. I know it is maybe late for me but I am thinking either start a tech startup (I have an idea that I think might work and really promising) or land a job at big tech. My motivations are: build something and financial. I have never worked in tech and I am lost and don't know what to do? Is it worth to work for big tech or try my new adventure? Is it really mandatory to work in big tech to be able to build a good tech startup, learning good habits and good engineering skills? From your experience, is it better to learn coding and best practices on building staff or by following course? What I mean, is it better to learn coding by building my idea or is it better to do a bootcamp, land a job and then build my idea? Thanks for your help :)

Great video, Kun! I very much feel like a bit of a craftsman in an entrepreneurial organization! Truthfully, I didn't know that there were teams that placed such a value on craftsmen, and that the only option was to be more of a bottom line type of guy.

Love your videos <3.

I’m definitely a craftsman but my team is looking for impact, fast iteration and product direction. It’s a challenge to balance fast features and good practices but I’ve begun to see the benefits of the other side - the entrepreneur

Kun, the difference seems to me to be about the different types of impact people want to have. A craftsman cares about engineering excellence impact, and the entrepreneur cares about the holistic product impact, right? And there would be both type of each in any person. But when I categorize features in my team's backlog, each of them again seems to be a combination of both types of impacts. So this has become complex: how do I ensure I am making the right choices, both at an individual feature level, and at a longer time duration level over multiple features, that I am always making the right choices for myself? Would you suggest I measure all of this in calculation explicitly? Or should I rely on my intuition and memory on this thing? Thank you.

Kun, thank you. im not certain why your video was suggested to me, as i am not in an engineering or software field at all.. but the nuggets of wisdom behind the occupational field was much appreciated. we tend to be 'all or nothing' in our career paths... thinking about the differences between the craftsman and the entrepreneur is right up my alley. i own and operate a mechanical repair center with a few employees. my goal has always been to just be an owner... maybe there is a middle ground, where i can focus on ownership but be ready to jump in and wrench if necessary too... thank you.

Well articulated video Kun! So many issues or differences of opinions can be resolved if engineering cultures recognize this spectrum and communicated that both polarities can have substantial measureable impact. I know you said craftsmenship can be hard to measure, but at computer science’s core is algorithms. So when companies need to scale, craftsmen who are well-versed in the various forms of algorithms, the impact could be measurable, if the company cares enough to do so.

Great content !!!