The first lie you believe early in your career is that everyone else knows what they’re doing.
Ben Buckley didn’t. Trained as a biochemist, he walked away from medicine, pushed into technology without the “right” background and took risks that made sense only if you cared more about learning than comfort.
What he figured out early is what most people learn late: uncertainty comes with the work, not incompetence.
In the latest episode of “Rookies to Rockstars,” Amanda Ziadeh talks with the GDIT vice president and general manager about building a career by chasing opportunity instead of titles and why progress usually feels messy while it’s happening.
Ben has spent over 16 years at the company, rising from engineer to leading some of GDIT’s largest and most complex programs across defense and the intelligence community. He kept choosing roles that stretched him, even when staying put would have been easier.
The conversation keeps coming back to judgment: knowing when to ask questions, when to take a risk and when to slow down long enough to learn from a mistake.
This episode also covers:
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Nobody has it figured out. Buckley assumed early that everyone else was ahead of him. They weren’t.
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Your degree doesn’t decide your ceiling. Analytical thinking transferred across fields even when job titles changed.
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Risk is the cost of progress. Growth requires it, especially when you push ideas others aren’t ready for.
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Mistakes create experience. Success teaches less. The value comes from stopping long enough to understand what went wrong.
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Proactivity compounds. Asking questions, doing the work and taking initiative separates early leaders from everyone else.
Ben also pushes back on the idea that today’s early-career professionals need to unlearn something. In his experience, many are already ahead: technically sharp, confident and capable of building real things that matter.
Tune in for an honest conversation about risk, learning on the job and how leadership in GovCon is built over time.