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A career ending mistake

bitfieldconsulting.com

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Re: A career ending mistake

#31

Post by giantg2 »

noneeeed wrote: post #16
giantg2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It felt great at first. Once you realize that the company - respected/known as a place that does the right thing - doesn't follow its own policies and screws people over, you realize that every company/job sucks. It won't be better anywhere else. And you wasted your youth on obscure and obsolete tech because the company needed it and you wrongly believed their promises that they would take care of you (retraining, ca…

For what it's worth, there are companies who walk the walk, I've been lucky enough to work for a couple. However, I think they are almost always smaller companies.

Do they walk the walk for everyone though? I find that the stuff that's out of view and only affects a small percentage seem to exist almost everywhere.

Re: A career ending mistake

#32

Post by zabzonk »

giantg2 wrote: post #5

"It's not surprising, then, that many of us find ourselves in less than fully satisfying jobs, with doubtful or non-existent prospects for advancement." Very true. I can't wait for my career to be over. I don't think I'll ever find the position where I feel I belong, so I'll just be miserable anywhere now that I know how broken the system really is.

So change careers. I spent the first 6 years of my working life as a medical microbiologist, and was miserable for almost all of it. Then I gradually got into programming, and things looked up. I was still miserable for some bits of it though - such is the nature of things.

Re: A career ending mistake

#33

Post by ghaff »

giantg2 wrote: post #9
zwieback wrote: post #4

I'm going the senior IC route, I would add to the description in the article that the job usually comes with an expectation of technical leadership and mentoring and/or helping to steer management. I spend hardly any time in general meetings but do spend some time building consensus around technical decisions.

Sounds like your HR is doing a decent job then, unlike mine. I recently applied to a business analyst role. I was told in the informational that I would spend only about 25% of my time researching/reporting, and that the other 75% would be project/stakeholder management. Ridiculous. No wonder we have trouble finding people when position titles are basically lies.

It sounds like they were very upfront with you about what the job would entail. How is that lying? And the reality at a large company is that many people spend a lot of time coordinating, sharing information, gathering requirements, etc. even if their nominal job is market research or whatever.

Re: A career ending mistake

#34

Post by hondo77 »

giantg2 wrote: post #5

"It's not surprising, then, that many of us find ourselves in less than fully satisfying jobs, with doubtful or non-existent prospects for advancement." Very true. I can't wait for my career to be over. I don't think I'll ever find the position where I feel I belong, so I'll just be miserable anywhere now that I know how broken the system really is.

Amen.

Re: A career ending mistake

#35

Post by kevinmchugh »

giantg2 wrote: post #11
_abox wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear that. I've had many positions where I felt like I belonged including my current. The ones where I didn't were very depressing and stressful. I hope you will find more fulfillment in the future! By the way I never planned anything. I don't think more than a week ahead. Somehow I have fallen into the right places anyhow. I tend to get really bored once I've totally mastered a job so I change a lot. I…

It felt great at first. Once you realize that the company - respected/known as a place that does the right thing - doesn't follow its own policies and screws people over, you realize that every company/job sucks. It won't be better anywhere else. And you wasted your youth on obscure and obsolete tech because the company needed it and you wrongly believed their promises that they would take care of you (retraining, ca…

I think integrity is a rare resource, and an expensive one. I'm trying to only work for people with a lot of it. Even then, the ownership structure of the company matters a lot. A manager with high integrity and investors to please who misses targets will either compromise or be forced out eventually.

Ownership structures other than VC funded startups might prove better fits.

Re: A career ending mistake

#36

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

sixdimensional wrote: post #29
tdumitrescu wrote: post #27

Feels like the "senior IC" role described in this article corresponds mainly to today's "3-5 years of experience 'senior' engineer" roles. The reality that I've seen and experienced is that advancing beyond that on an IC track means a lot more people/political work, rather than constant "hands on keyboard" coding as described in the article. It's not the same as management, but it's inevitably more meetings and evang…

The fact that we work in an industry where 3-5 years is considered senior still boggles me sometimes.

It's just a title. Means about as much as VP in banks.

Re: A career ending mistake

#37

Post by toomuchtodo »

crrndngmstk wrote: post #21

To me, this reveals an uncomfortable truth: - I know I'm not technically skilled enough to make it to the higher levels of IC - I know I lack the people skills & charisma to make it to the higher levels of management I'm aware I can improve in both and I accept that, to some extent, it's a laziness and confidence issue. But to some people it seems to come naturally and it's hard not to assume I'm in the majority that…

You could be a technical PM. Bit of a “day walker” with a foot in both the tech and people worlds.

Re: A career ending mistake

#38

Post by hef19898 »

ansible wrote: post #25
crrndngmstk wrote: post #21

To me, this reveals an uncomfortable truth: - I know I'm not technically skilled enough to make it to the higher levels of IC - I know I lack the people skills & charisma to make it to the higher levels of management I'm aware I can improve in both and I accept that, to some extent, it's a laziness and confidence issue. But to some people it seems to come naturally and it's hard not to assume I'm in the majority that…

If you find a good niche, and develop a lot of domain expertise in that area, you can likely make it to the senior levels of an IC, even if you don't have the most super-awesome technical skills. The trick (and of course there is a trick) is to find a narrow enough niche that you would enjoy working in, where you can get paid well, but isn't so narrow that you have very limited choices regarding who to work for.

I came to realize recently that, despite having been quite ambitious, I never really wanted to rise through the ranks. It took it nice, quite job without management responsibility to show me hoe good it can be to be good in your job and not worry about career advancement. There are other things to spend energy on on life. That's the reason why I am less then thrilled to be pulled into high profile projects lately... Especially those projects will have zero real world impact despite being high profile...

Re: A career ending mistake

#39

Post by [deleted] »

giantg2 wrote: post #9
zwieback wrote: post #4

I'm going the senior IC route, I would add to the description in the article that the job usually comes with an expectation of technical leadership and mentoring and/or helping to steer management. I spend hardly any time in general meetings but do spend some time building consensus around technical decisions.

Sounds like your HR is doing a decent job then, unlike mine. I recently applied to a business analyst role. I was told in the informational that I would spend only about 25% of my time researching/reporting, and that the other 75% would be project/stakeholder management. Ridiculous. No wonder we have trouble finding people when position titles are basically lies.

[deleted]

Re: A career ending mistake

#40

Post by eulerian »

Curious if there's anyone who's made a plan for this sort of a thing. I'm never able to plan even the rest of my week and follow through with it. What does a plan for your career look like and how do you get the discipline to stick to it?
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