Signs You’re in a Dead-End Job
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Signs You’re in a Dead-End Job
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Re: Signs You’re in a Dead-End Job
#2For software developers, I feel this career thing works a bit differently. Going up the ladder means managing people or projects, but that is not necessarily more fun than writing code.
I don't know where I see myself in 5 years, but it might actually be still just coding, no actual change in title or function. It's fun and challenging and I imagine it can be like that for a long time.
Instead, a dead end job for me would be caused by projects that are boring, or that the process has become overly bureaucratic, or that the company interests or culture have become too corporate or political.
Re: Signs You’re in a Dead-End Job
#3For software developers, I feel this career thing works a bit differently. Going up the ladder means managing people or projects, but that is not necessarily more fun than writing code. I don't know where I see myself in 5 years, but it might actually be still just coding, no actual change in title or function. It's fun and challenging and I imagine it can be like that for a long time. Instead, a dead end job for me…
I read that first paragraph "Are you sitting at the same desk, working for the same manager, doing the same work, and earning the same salary as you are right now?" and thought, if I've still got all of this in 5 years time, I'm going to count myself very fortunate.
Re: Signs You’re in a Dead-End Job
#4For software developers, I feel this career thing works a bit differently. Going up the ladder means managing people or projects, but that is not necessarily more fun than writing code. I don't know where I see myself in 5 years, but it might actually be still just coding, no actual change in title or function. It's fun and challenging and I imagine it can be like that for a long time. Instead, a dead end job for me…
I don't think it works that differently. If you're happy where you are, that's fine, but working in the same position forever is not my idea of a software development career unless you receive steadily more pay for doing the same work.
Re: Signs You’re in a Dead-End Job
#5For software developers, I feel this career thing works a bit differently. Going up the ladder means managing people or projects, but that is not necessarily more fun than writing code. I don't know where I see myself in 5 years, but it might actually be still just coding, no actual change in title or function. It's fun and challenging and I imagine it can be like that for a long time. Instead, a dead end job for me…
I don't think it works that differently. If you're happy where you are, that's fine, but working in the same position forever is not my idea of a software development career unless you receive steadily more pay for doing the same work.
It depends whether there's a viable route to promotion that doesn't quickly lead into management territory.
Re: Signs You’re in a Dead-End Job
#6For software developers, I feel this career thing works a bit differently. Going up the ladder means managing people or projects, but that is not necessarily more fun than writing code. I don't know where I see myself in 5 years, but it might actually be still just coding, no actual change in title or function. It's fun and challenging and I imagine it can be like that for a long time. Instead, a dead end job for me…
I read that first paragraph "Are you sitting at the same desk, working for the same manager, doing the same work, and earning the same salary as you are right now?" and thought, if I've still got all of this in 5 years time, I'm going to count myself very fortunate.
Office Space: "It would be nice to have that kind of job security!"
Re: Signs You’re in a Dead-End Job
#7Oh, that's simple - you are 9-to-5 coder in a language which name begins with J or ends with #.
Re: Signs You’re in a Dead-End Job
#8I'm in a job a bit like that, not much room for advancement. Not much of a challenge, but the pay is about double what most other places in my town are paying because it's a small location of a much bigger company. my family is here and we have no intention of leaving so for now it's a very comfy dead end job with good benefits etc.
Re: Signs You’re in a Dead-End Job
#9I've found myself recently in that situation. That's what I am going to do about it:
1) I've been reading about startups and etc for ~2 years but have never did my own project ("but well there is XYZ which is perfect..."). At the moment, I have tabs open and looking for ideas for MVPs home page's design. The experience will be extremely valuable for the future.
2) I felt like I have something to say, but kept in my mind. Now I write everything to google docs, leave for a while to cool down (sometimes it looks like awesome idea but a day later I find it as an embarrassing) and going to publish as a blog.
The hardest thing about it? There's almost all the time "well it's not totally perfect... just few more days!".
Since I'm still a student (one year left), many people at networking events are like 'oh sounds interesting... you just graduated?' 'nope, one more year' 'oh......', the opportunities are a bit more limited.
Re: Signs You’re in a Dead-End Job
#10For software developers, I feel this career thing works a bit differently. Going up the ladder means managing people or projects, but that is not necessarily more fun than writing code. I don't know where I see myself in 5 years, but it might actually be still just coding, no actual change in title or function. It's fun and challenging and I imagine it can be like that for a long time. Instead, a dead end job for me…
My previous company had a "technical ladder" for promotion of engineers without making them into managers.
The general idea was that as you progressed through your technical career, you would be making more and more important technical decisions, measured by the impact to the company.
A junior engineer would be making technical choices that affected one subsystem, a principal engineer might define a protocol between two large components, and an architect would be making technical decisions that affected the entire company.
You can always nitpick these things to death, but I liked the general idea.