An individual can change an organization

One of the biggest lessons I learned early in my career was from Drew
DeVault at Linode, 10 years ago. He was one of the youngest developers
in the company (only I was younger, at 20, at the time) but he cared
really strongly about thinking through architecture and code decisions
when the culture at the time was, and I love those guys, a little
haphazard.

Drew had no special position. We all had the same title,
“Developer”. But he argued so persuasively and so doggedly even when
the entire organization seemed against him and somehow he eventually
transformed the entire engineering organization.

That’s supposed to be impossible! It was entirely new to me. That you
don’t need to wait behind people with more experience to make the
right decision. That you can be part of making the right decision if you
can find the logic and the will to do it.

It isn’t that simple of course. Politics is politics. But there are
plenty of companies with people who will make a good faith effort to
do what makes sense but might, without someone’s unasked-for effort,
do not what makes sense but what is popular because what’s popular
just kinda seems easiest. And I always like working for these
companies, and for the most part have been able to identify them
during the interview process.

I learned from Drew to put limited value in seniority. I learned that
it’s ok to debate. I learned to be prepared and to try to present the
facts. I learned to be persistent when I wanted change. I learned that
with these skills, it’s possible for an individual to redirect the
path of an organization.

It took a while longer (and me driving one or two people on my team to
quit, to my great regret) to learn when to do these things and when
to let things go. Still, this lesson from Drew on what’s possible
always stands out in my memory. Thank you, Drew.