Embracing Change: The Key to Staying Relevant in Tech’s Fast-Moving Landscape

Pace of Change — Illustration credit: Roberto Ferraro

Over the years, I have come to the realization that being able to adopt and embrace change is the fundamental, yet most underrated, skill required to stay relevant in this fast-moving industry. Here are some harsh truths from my own observations.

1. Identify the skills in demand and work on yourself — The skill set that’s in demand in 2025 compared to five years ago has changed drastically. You could be a rock-star engineer, but if you lack the soft skills, you will find it hard to stay relevant, and no team/employer wants to carry dead weight. For example, with the pandemic and remote-first culture, we have knowingly or unknowingly moved from a team-centric supervised setup to a more self-directed, individual accountability-driven setup, requiring each individual to have solid communication, presentation, time-management, and teamwork skills. The days of sitting in front of a screen, writing code with minimal human interaction, are long gone.
2. Learn to see every business as a financially driven operation — The value you create in your capacity has a direct impact on the sustainability and growth of the business as well as yours. Working hard itself is not enough anymore, and it doesn’t matter if you are putting in 10 hours or 1 hour to complete a task, as long as you complete it up to the expected level with the right quality. Think smart and creatively, use new tools, and leverage technology to understand what the new ways are to solve a problem. Relying ‘only on what you already know’ or applying the same approach you have used in the past won’t make you stand out.
3. In tech, learning never stops — Self-studying is the game changer. Organizations are promoting self-study over traditional training and development programs, and cost is not the biggest consideration here. We can all collectively agree that the IT landscape is evolving at a speed that none of us predicted, and keeping up with the latest and greatest requires continuous proactive learning. You may have to find your own time to learn or practice new skills; I look at it as an investment you are making in yourself, not as a burden you have to deal with after working hours. Individuals who develop the habit of seeking out knowledge on their own are more adaptable and better equipped to solve complex problems and face new opportunities.

Experiments may fail, but learning never stops — Illustration credit: Roberto Ferraro