My brother is running an ultra-marathon today, stepping up to the starting line with minimal training. As I think about what leads up to someone stepping on the start line, I’m struck by how much it mirrors the world of software engineering. The race itself, the day of the event, isn’t the real story. It’s the culmination of months of unseen effort: waking up in the dark, braving cold weather, training alone while others sleep or relax, and balancing family life with an intense schedule. That’s where the true grit lives.
There’s paralells in software, when a polished product or solution launches, it’s a celebration, a finish line. But the real work happens long before, in the quiet moments no one sees. It’s the late nights or long days debugging a stubborn bug, the countless iterations of trying and failing and then trying again, and the collaborative grind of aligning a team toward a single goal. These are the miles logged in the dark, the ones that don’t make it to the highlight reel.
Just like an endurance athlete, a software engineer thrives on overcoming hurdles. It’s in the messy, challenging process solving complex problems, navigating trade-offs, and learning from failures, that it really comes alive. The satisfaction doesn’t come from the final product alone but from the harmony of a team working together, iterating, and pushing through setbacks.
Watching my brother tackle his ultra-marathon today, I’m reminded that the real reward in any tough endeavor, whether running miles or building software, is the grind itself that lead you to the day of the event. The unseen effort, the teamwork, and the problem-solving make the finish line worth crossing.
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