From tidying cables to manage global risk: my corporate story

7 years, 4 roles, one leap — the real story of leaving management consulting burnout behind

It was 2018, and I just graduated from college. After living in Barcelona for eight years, I knew there was more waiting for me out there. I packed my bags and decided to move to another European city where I could improve my English and—to be fair—earn more than I could back home.

London was a popular choice, but my small student budget was going to take a hit and probably I’d have to live in the outskirts under terrible conditions for more than I could afford. So I chose Berlin instead.

Berlin offered everything I wanted: international culture, young demographic, rich history, severe climate, good beer and even better clubs.

Everyone starts somewhere

When I started working I was very naive, far more than I’d like to admit. I felt on top of the world, freshly graduated, moved to a big international city, young and convinced everything was possible. But starting a new job that I had never done before was ambitious. That’s why I decided to apply for jobs that matched my existing experience. This is how I ended up starting as an IT guy in one of the world’s biggest management consulting firms.

Nothing could prepare me for the level of expectations this company had. It wasn’t my first job but it was my first company with American corporate culture and international colleagues. Before that, all the companies I’d worked for were Spanish, with employees who were there just for the paycheck and aimed to do the minimum without being noticed.

The initial shock lasted me six months, I had multiple meetings per day and problems I couldn’t fix even reading the documentations. Working in a new language probably didn’t help, and the intensity of each day left me exhausted more times than not.

Thankfully things started to get better. I adjusted to the company culture, learned my colleagues’ names and used them when I greeted them with a smile. Soon I became their go-to person for their laptop fixes only because I made them feel good, or maybe because I delivered results even if that took me all day.

Being the newest isn’t pretty. You are going to do the things everyone have been waiting for someone new to do for them. Things they don’t want to do.

This is how I spent all those hours underneath tables tidying up cables. It’s not nice when colleagues would greet me with: “What are you doing lurking under that assistant’s desk?” “just plugging the phone line!” - “Sure!.”

This got better once we hired someone newer than me. The circle of life.

The big question

Okay, but how did you end up managing global risk for this company?

That’s one of those things where life happens to you.

While working in my second role as a systems administrator, I was already managing IT risk: external accounts, secure storage, project access, assessing tools for compliance, and more. This work brought me close to the Information Security Compliance team, and we bonded over many years. Then one day, the golden opportunity appeared. Their senior security engineer found a better job and decided to leave. I had only a few weeks to learn everything needed for my new role as security engineer before he left.

You will never feel ready for a bigger role, and honestly, that’s the point. If you wait until you feel completely prepared, you’ll be waiting forever. You must be willing to jump in without all the answers, to stumble through the learning, and to trust that you’ll figure it out like everything you’ve been doing until now. The people who get ahead aren’t the ones with all the answers upfront. They’re the ones who move before they’re ready and learn by doing it.

I finally made it. After five years studying computer science and AV telecommunications, I could finally say my education had culminated in an engineer title. All the tuition, time, and sacrifices were about to pay off.

Or were they?

After an express onboarding, I found myself alone, managing the technical risk for dozens of projects around the world: Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore, London, and South America. We had someone covering North America before she left soon after.

Those meetings were stressful! I was telling senior management that they couldn’t deliver projects on time because they’d overlooked critical contractual requirements. You can imagine their faces when a twenty-something-year-old suggested that multi-million-dollar project deliveries might need to be delayed because our data centers weren’t in the right region.

Well, that caused me a lot of unnecessary stress until I got reassigned to do client work, where I spent the last years doing software products for major clients. After some time, I began to realize this wasn’t fulfilling me. I’d feel a knot tightening in my throat every time I joined a Zoom call or wasted hours on meaningless tasks that I knew I could spend on something better.

As many roles as I could

In seven years, I had four different roles—one every 1.75 years. This allowed me to keep growing professionally and experience different aspects of the business. Compare that with someone who only sees one or two roles in a decade. Corporations use us for their benefit, but we can also use them. It’s a bidirectional relationship. You have to be ready to seize opportunities when they present themselves and keep acquiring valuable skills along the way. This makes you more useful, more experienced, and more confident to tackle bigger challenges.

Were all four roles great? No. Some were great, others were pretty rough. But what defined my path wasn’t finding perfect roles, it was the willingness to keep moving. The moment I started feeling too comfortable, I’d switch. Because comfort is the enemy of growth. You have to be willing to leave a decent situation to find a better one, even when you don’t know if it’ll work out.

“At every job you should either learn or earn. Either is fine. Both is best. But if it’s neither, quit.” — Garry Tan (Y Combinator CEO)

Finding your path

There came a point where my values and life vision no longer aligned with the company I was working for. This is expected—nothing is permanent. People change, business changes, life changes. It’s important to notice when this happens and be brave enough to step away and follow your own path toward your ideal life.

I didn’t have problems with the company or my colleagues—just with the monotonous work I was doing for others that felt unfulfilling and meaningless. If you’re feeling the same way, I can tell you that deep down, you already know what to do. Before things get worse, listen to your body and do the right thing. Your life, your heart, and your mental health will thank you.

If you’re in this situation or feeling lost in your current job, subscribe to Via Libera. I write to show you that another path is possible—one more aligned with your life vision. You can find meaningful work that doesn’t feel like work at all. And when you do, your life will never be the same.

— Dave