How to be Early

When you should bet on technology

As a technologist, you will frequently find yourself on either side of Geoffrey Moore’s “chasm,” either as an early adopter or as part of the early or late majority (see Strategic Awareness chapter for an in-depth explanation). The career upside, and risk, of betting on tech early is well understood, but it is worth discussing how early to be and where to take risks in the stack .

Managing risk

Your primary job in betting on technology is to manage your overall technology risk while picking up new tech that helps you write better software. Technology is a means to an end. You should try to avoid making bets that could jeopardize your ultimate end goal.

If your goal is getting a job, your risk appetite is fairly low. Just aim to gain expertise in what your target companies already use. If you have job security or already have a stack that you are comfortable with, you have a higher risk appetite for expanding your toolkit. If you’re trying to do something truly cutting edge, you should be trying out all sorts of new and unproven approaches.

Innovation credits

Thoughtbot and Echobind have a good approach that I liken to “Innovation Credit.” The rule is basically that when picking a stack for a client project, you’re only allowed to pick one or two new technologies to use, and everything else should be a familiar tech. They go so far as to allocate one day a week as “investment time” and budget in delays to their estimates for things to go wrong. You don’t have to go to the same extent, but allocating ...