I Threw Away My AirPods

I threw away the AirPods I’d been using for over a year — a prize I won at a company event.

In 2022, I joined my current company as a backend engineer. There was a lot to learn in this new domain, and I focused on tackling each task one at a time.

Build a feature, resolve an issue, move on to the next sprint. The cycle itself wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that somewhere along the way, I had closed my ears.

When sharing technical context or the reasoning behind decisions with colleagues, I thought I was communicating — but in reality, the message often didn’t land. In code reviews, technical discussions, incident responses — I was poor at translating what was in my head into a form others could understand, and poor at listening to others on their terms.

Working in my own bubble became a habit, and burnout followed.

After much deliberation, I proposed a three-month sabbatical.

I didn’t want to simply rest and call it done. I wanted to reflect on what I was lacking and spend the time improving.

I used to hate documentation at work. I knew it mattered, but committing thoughts to writing always felt like a chore.

But communication isn’t a skill you build in your head. It builds slowly — by putting things out, trying to convey them, and sitting with how they land.

So I’m starting this blog. Not to write well — to practice the act of writing and sharing itself.

Technical things, things I’ve felt at work — I want to keep putting my thoughts out there, and build the muscle of sharing.

I used to think “a good engineer = someone who knows technology well.” That’s not wrong, but it’s an incomplete definition.

If what I know never reaches my team, that knowledge might as well not exist.

A good engineer isn’t someone who knows technology well, but someone who can share that knowledge with their team.

That’s why I threw away my AirPods. To listen — and to reach out.