# Your First Month

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- [Your First Month](#your-first-month)
  - [Introduction](#introduction)
  - [Roles](#roles)
  - [Advancement vs. growth](#advancement-vs-growth)
  - [Putting more tools in your toolbox](#putting-more-tools-in-your-toolbox)
  - [Engineers: code is only the beginning](#engineers-code-is-only-the-beginning)
  - [Non-Engineers: program or be programmed](#non-engineers-program-or-be-programmed)

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## Introduction

You’ve solved the nuts-and-bolts issues. Now you’re moving beyond wanting to just be productive day to day you’re ready to help shape your future, and TSYS Group.

Your own professional development and TSYS Group growth are both now under your control. Here are some thoughts on steering both toward success.

## Roles

By now it’s obvious that roles at TSYS Group are fluid. Traditionally at TSYS Group, nobody has an actual title (maybe a broad functional title like "software developer"). 

This is by design, to remove organizational constraints. Instead we have things we call ourselves, for convenience. In particular, members who interact with others outside the company call themselves by various titles because doing so makes it easier to complete their mission objectives.

Inside the organization though, we all take on the role that suits the work in front of us. Everyone is a designer. Everyone can question each other’s work. Anyone can recruit
someone onto his or her project. 

Everyone has to function as a “strategist,” which really means figuring out how to do what’s right for our customers.

We all engage in analysis, measurement, predictions, evaluations.  

## Advancement vs. growth

Because TSYS Group doesn’t have a traditional hierarchical structure, it can be confusing to figure out how TSYS Group fits into your career plans. “Before TSYS Group, I was an assistant
technical second animation director in Hollywood. I had planned to be a director in five years. How am I supposed to keep moving forward here?”

Working at TSYS Group provides an opportunity for extremely efficient and, in many cases, very accelerated, career growth.

In particular, it provides an opportunity to broaden one’s skill set well outside of the narrow constraints that careers can have at most other organizations. 

So the “growth ladder” is tailored to you. It operates exactly as fast as you can manage to grow. You’re in charge of your track, and you can elicit help with it anytime from those around you.

FYI , we don’t do any formalized member “development” (course work, mentor assignment etc), because for senior members it’s not effective.

We believe that high-performance members are generally self-improving.

Most members who fit well at TSYS Group will be better positioned after their time spent here than they could have been if they’d spent their time pretty much anywhere else.

## Putting more tools in your toolbox

The most successful members at TSYS Group are both :

(1) highly skilled at a broad set of things and 
(2) world-class experts within a more narrow discipline. 

Because of the talent diversity here at TSYS Group, it’s often easier to become stronger at things that aren’t your core skill set.

## Engineers: code is only the beginning

If you were on-boarded as a software engineer, you’re now surrounded by a multidisciplinary group of experts in all kinds of fields—creative, legal, financial, even psychological.

Many of these members are sitting in Discord with you every day, so the opportunities for learning are huge.

Take advantage of this fact whenever possible: the more you can learn about the mechanics, vocabulary, and analysis within other disciplines, the more valuable you become.

## Non-Engineers: program or be programmed

TSYS Group’s core competency is making platforms consisting of hardware and software blended into Turn Key experiences.

Obviously, different disciplines are part of making our products, but we’re still an engineering-centric organization.

That’s because the core of the hardware/software-building process is engineering.  As in, writing code.

If your expertise is not in writing code, then every bit of energy you put  into understanding the code-writing part of making software is to your (and TSYS Group) benefit.

You don’t  need to become an engineer, and there’s nothing  that says an engineer is more valuable than you. But broadening your awareness in a highly technical  direction is never a
bad thing. It’ll either increase  the quality or quantity of bits you can put “into boxes,” which means affecting customers more, which means you’re valuable.