An Alternative Way to Boost Your Uniqueness on the Team

How to make you, an entry-level engineer, unique on the team

Instead of being unique, they are more like, monetarily and technically, cheaper versions of their mentors

An important word we hear a lot during some career development talks is “unique”. Being unique on the team boosts your impact and makes you (kind of) irreplaceable.

But for many entry-level engineers, they are usually assigned with mentors at the beginning of their careers. What they learn are usually subsets of the mentors’ skillsets. Instead of being unique, they are more like, monetarily and technically, cheaper versions of their mentors. While an entry-level engineer in short amount of time won’t be unique in the technical skillsets, there is an alternative way to be unique. Note that there are many paths to uniqueness, but what I offer here is an interesting way taught by my manager. And what I offer here is not limited to entry-level software engineers; the principle can be applied to many other types of jobs.

Time

Having more available time slots on the calendar actually makes you unique and an important asset on…