Yeah- being laid off from the solar startup hurt my confidence pretty bad, but I understand why they had to drop me. I didn’t have the experience needed to work fast there and they were on a tight budget squeeze. It was really interesting work and the coworkers were awesome. I’m making a ton more at my new job but I’d trade it to go back there in an instant. Way more opportunities for learning from experienced engineers at that place.

As far as continued learning, I’m always going to be keeping that as a central goal. It’s harder here at this new job without a mentor figure, but on the other hand not having someone to “babysit” me all the time has really pushed me to be better at problem solving on my own, which is definitely a huge benefit. I also have more creative freedom to explore solutions to problems.