from my experience, acquiring the self-awareness you need in order to articulate this problem is the biggest hurdle to solving it -- you're on your way!
early in my career, i shared this hangup and because i was so emotionally invested in the products that i worked on, i considered criticism of my work == criticism of me personally.
i think the next step is evaluating how effectively you are separating your work and personal life. when i have struggled with this issue the most, it has correlated with me being too emotionally invested in what i'm working on.
make sure that you have projects and interests outside of work that fulfill you so that you don't rely an outsize amount on your work for fulfillment. often this means having better guardrails about work-life-balance -- do you clearly define when you are and aren't available for work, for example?
the other thing is simply reminding yourself that your work isn't you, and it doesn't define your value. working with complex systems, we are going to screw up at times, it's an inevitability. if you aim to not make mistakes, ever, and bristle when they are pointed out or criticized, you're going to struggle over the longterm to get along with the people you collaborate with.
ironically, i have found that being more open and accepting of the "dumb" shit i do leads others to think more highly of me as an engineer. i think most of us can think of "that person" we've worked with who can't take criticism and recoils when questioned -- when you do, how did that you feel when you experienced that behavior firsthand? if i had to guess, it probably wasn't positive. we can do better!
early in my career, i shared this hangup and because i was so emotionally invested in the products that i worked on, i considered criticism of my work == criticism of me personally.
i think the next step is evaluating how effectively you are separating your work and personal life. when i have struggled with this issue the most, it has correlated with me being too emotionally invested in what i'm working on.
make sure that you have projects and interests outside of work that fulfill you so that you don't rely an outsize amount on your work for fulfillment. often this means having better guardrails about work-life-balance -- do you clearly define when you are and aren't available for work, for example?
the other thing is simply reminding yourself that your work isn't you, and it doesn't define your value. working with complex systems, we are going to screw up at times, it's an inevitability. if you aim to not make mistakes, ever, and bristle when they are pointed out or criticized, you're going to struggle over the longterm to get along with the people you collaborate with.
ironically, i have found that being more open and accepting of the "dumb" shit i do leads others to think more highly of me as an engineer. i think most of us can think of "that person" we've worked with who can't take criticism and recoils when questioned -- when you do, how did that you feel when you experienced that behavior firsthand? if i had to guess, it probably wasn't positive. we can do better!