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Comment by mooreds | Hacker News Reader

> I worry that by not being challenged I will become complacent.

Fair worry.

> What can I do to change things?

You should switch jobs.

I've been the top technical person at a couple of companies (not the size of your company, however). It can be exhilarating to be "the person". You get a lot of respect and autonomy. But it can be easy to fall into the curse of the expert beginner: https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...

While you can mitigate this to some extent by participating in groups (virtual and physical) for other great developers, the easiest way to handle this issue is to switch jobs.

So, I'd suggest you start interviewing. Either you'll find a better place, or you'll discover advantages of your current situation.

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I concur, switch jobs. It may just be that you've become the big fish in a small pond (or even a large pond, but just at that company). No better way to make you realize what all you don't know except by switching jobs.

I've been "the goto guy" at a few places, usually just ended up that way over time, and when I switched jobs, suddenly it felt like I didn't know anything, or at least had a lot of catching up to do.

Like I was a SME at my previous company, that got pulled into a bunch of meetings, and was often brought up and thanked in multiple town hall meetings for various projects I worked on.

At my new job, it was obvious that everyone was using technology and architecture that I was never exposed to and I had a lot to catch up on, and I still am. I am definitely not a SME here. Although I have been on one project just long enough that I will start helping onboard and overseeing some junior engineers soon, it sounds like.

Also, I'm smart and can pick up things quickly, but I would never consider myself a 10x engineer.

Will the "getting busy/challenged learning new things at new job" resolve the loneliness feeling though?

Considering that the loneliness seems to be a byproduct of feeling like the smartest person in the room, I think it could be a good perspective shift. There are always smarter people and harder problems.

+1. I had a similar crisis when I was a “big fish in a smallish company”, I wasn’t learning, I wasn’t being stretched and felt like I was going to get stuck in this eddy. Move to a bigger company, be challenged again.

I mostly agree, but I don't think the company necessarily has to be bigger, just more competent and ambitious(?).

I agree. It depends on what you want to do. I've been challenged technically at 2 person startups and 100k person companies.

Advice for OP: what companies do you admire? Either globally or locally? Have conversations with folks at that company (LinkedIn is your friend in accomplishing this) and see what people actually working at these companies think about challenges and accomplishments at their employer.

This is an interesting idea.

The parent meant to communicate "big fish in small pond" but tossed in the word company instead of pond. Ignore that bit.

Big fish in small pond still describes the need for room to grow accurately enough.

Same with me. I was the most senior dev still writing code ~every day, and there was literally no place to grow. Moved to Google and learned a ton, now I'm one of a number of big fishes in my org, and I also feel like I can potentially move on more easily if I want to.

IMO people who describe themselves as big fish in a small pond come off as extremely arrogant

Was just a statement of fact. 11 years at one company with only 20 engineers runs into limits of your scope pretty fast.

How about ‘largest fish in a small pond’?

Also: don't rule out an intra-organization move.

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