I’m the growth manager of CocoDoc, a software development company. Being a Growth Manager means a lot of everything when you work in a startup. Aside from my technical development skills (I’m a qualified back-end developer), I also engage in a lot of marketing, and creative content development.

My typical day

I would wake up at six, prepare my things, and commute to our office by eight. Currently, I’m working remotely most of the time. Even then, remote work means that I have to wake up a bit earlier. This is due to the fact that I handle a team of remote software developers, some of who check in from different time zones.

My typical remote work day looks like this:

6.00AM: Waking up and exercising

7.00AM: Breakfast and checking my email for any updates. I also check my to-do list to confirm things that I have to do during the day.

8.00AM: Check in meeting with team members to confirm completion of yesterday’s tasks. This includes pending reports, tests, and daily work reports from yesternight.

9.00-12.00AM: I often oscillate between creative meetings, development, and managing specific facets of our software teams. In our meetings, we discuss a lot of marketing, our marketing approaches, company policies and visions, and executions of tasks given to specific teams.

12.00-14.00PM: Lunch break

14.00-16.00PM: Collaboration with team members where they have issues with code, and UX development.

16.00-18.00PM: Perform code testing after submission from the teams.

18.30PM: Updating the following day’s to-do lists and clearing up any pending meetings and tasks.

Pros

• Being in the software development field is fun. I enjoy seeing my software creations bearing fruit and helping people.
• Software development also allows remote working. I can work from virtually anywhere in the world. I love the job because it gives me a chance to be a digital nomad.
• There’s also a lot of opportunity for growth in the industry. Virtually everything is moving into software today. A developer’s job, therefore, keeps increasing.
• Finally, it also pays well to be a developer, be it as an employee in a company, or as an entrepreneur.

Cons

• The job can drain you out of all your energy
• Getting a work-life balance when you’re working remotely is quite difficult too
• The speed of technological changes means that everything is a learning curve. Your skills can be relevant one day, and irrelevant the next one. Unlike other careers, this one requires constant learning to survive.
• A software development job, especially as an entrepreneur doesn’t really respect time. Short deadlines and high-pressure environments are quite normal.

Alina Clark
CocoDoc

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