Daniel's Blog
Choose your own adventure
2 min read | Last Updated: November 17, 2020
When I think about careers (or someone else’s), it reminds me of the old “Choose your own adventure” books.
It’s all about you
Looking at career options can be overwhelming - am I picking the right track? What happens if I chose wrong? Don’t worry, no one really knows. It’s OK to try different things, and it will depend on which opportunities your company and your managers can offer you.
Speaking of tracks, I prefer when companies offer a way of being in both tracks at the same time, without having to choose more formally (i.e. if you manage, you can’t code). If not, you could work in a company where you are a full-time manager and then go back to coding, that’s cool.
Tanya Reilly wrote this amazing post about glue work and careers https://noidea.dog/glue. It explains in a very clear way why glue work is critical on any team, and how to balance out doing what you want or are good at it vs doing work to progress your career.
The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier lays down the path for engineering, and it’s essential if you are interested in leadership, including being a tech lead.
Your manager should have open and honest conversations about your career and options, but if they are not, initiate those. Having “official” career ladders help because you can then have more specific discussions (assuming the ladders are not bad, and they are used to guide promotion decisions). Your manager should champion you and set clear expectations to hit your desired goals, but if they don’t, try to have those conversations with them. Unfortunately, sometimes your personal goals mismatch the ones from the company, and if there’s no way to address those, perhaps it’s time to look for something new…Remember, choose your own adventure!
Update on Nov 2020: I feel career conversations is a more detailed, fleshed out “choose your own adventure” version of this blog 🌳. I’m going to keep this one here cause it has some reading bits and I like the image :D
Written by Daniel Lopez Rovira who likes talking about engineering stuff.