Around 12 months ago I wrote a blog post about my journey from SD to PC at Readify and I thought it might be worthwhile doing a follow up to that about how the 12 months since then have gone. If you haven’t read the first one you might want to read it, it’ll give a bunch of context into what I’m talking about here.
What’s Changed?
As much as I’d like to say that moving into the PC role I was able to answer every question, solve every problem, etc. but unsurprisingly no, that wasn’t the case. Realistically nothing really changed, at least not immediately, as I was really doing most of the PC roles during the ~6 months prior. I also happened to be in the middle of quite a large project so that was the main focus.
But as that project got into a more solid place my involvement was less required and I was able to move into more non-billable work. What do I mean by that? as a PC you will spend a portion of your week not directly on a client but instead focusing on a number of other Readify activities, from doing health checks with other teams, helping fellow consultants on their career path, or pre-sales activities.
Growing into the PC role
Being in the new role I was able to spend more time doing some stuff that I found I was really enjoying, and one such thing was pre-sales, going out to qualify an opportunity. This kind of work allows me to spread my technology breadth wider, look at more kinds of problems and how to solve them, as well as doing more technical writing.
I also got an opportunity to get involved in a digital transformation project for a large multinational project. This was a really great opportunity where I was put in the position to do the Enterprise Architecture, setup a technical architecture, work with a team distributed across 4 cities and 3 countries and start planning out a roadmap for how we’ll evolve from what was mostly a PoC to being a platform supporting dozens of delivery teams. Admittedly there were weeks where I’d spend every day in meeting rooms which is tough, but I learnt a heck of a lot on that project and about how to run projects at scale.
The End of an Era
In September I hit 7 years at Readify, and it’s also when I hung up my PC boots at Readify. After 12 months I realised that while there were parts of the role I enjoyed there were also parts I didn’t enjoy, or at least, I didn’t find myself being the best fit for at this point in my life.
So instead I’ve taken a transfer within Readify to a new role as a Technical Pre-Sales Consultant, so I’m now part of the sales team!
What I realised when I moved into the PC role was that the stuff that I enjoyed the most of was understanding the why of a project, working with clients to define a project, how it’d work and importantly, just what the underlying business motives are.
Now onwards and upwards into the world of sales!