Moziversary
Last month I passed four years at Mozilla. At the time I joined there was a large influx into Mozilla Corporation as it went on a hiring spree, increasing the number of employees greatly.
For many years at Mozilla I had my head down, focused on delivering code and deadlines. Driven by my own imposter syndrome, I aimed to be as productive as possible. Hammering out code on Addons and then the Marketplace.
These days that feels less and less like a valuable role for me.
A few weeks ago I was looking at a chart in Mozillas intranet that shows how long you’ve been at Mozilla. For me it looks like this:
All it really means is that I’m old and I’ve been at Mozilla a while. Length of time at Mozilla doesn’t really mean a whole lot, beyond that. What it did make me realise is that those group of employees who joined with me are becoming the elders of Mozilla. More than ever, we shape how Mozilla Corporation operates and help the culture.
It feels like I need to take on more responsibility for Mozilla and the way it operates. For example:
- making sure Mozilla takes the right direction
- calling out when Mozilla makes a mistake internally
- helping out when Mozilla does something wrong externally
- worrying about the mission and ensuring that we do things that focus on the mission
- ensuring people at Mozilla (including myself) are good to each other
I’ve seen these things be corrected within Mozilla, not by managers, but by the other employees who care about the organisation.
I’ve done that some times, but really not enough. Its easier to focus on some of lines of code, solve a problem and repeat. Now its time to put my head above the parapet more and take some shots.
We are the elders of Mozilla, time to start acting like it.