Hitchhiker's mini-guide to Career Management

I read too many post from talented professionals on various social/professional networks and apps on the topic of career development so I wanted provide my two cents in hopes of helping someone out there.

Who am I? 

I am a passionate technologist with more than 10 years of experience as a hands on engineer building software and more than 9 years of experience building engineering teams (managing engineers, SDMs, PMs, TPMs and everything in-between including engineering director). I have had two successful startups and a non-profit from ground up so you can say I have good amount of experience in this industry from different angles. I agree big tech companies has many challenges around career development and its easy to get frustrated at times. I suggest not to waste your time just venting but channel it appropriately to 1) understanding why you feel the way you feel 2) make a decision to stay or go 3) move on.

Let's breakdown these steps one at a time: 

1. Why I feel miserable in my current role?

This question is important as answer from this will fork the path for next step so let's step back.

An engineering career (or any career for that matter) is like a plant. To properly grow it needs those 3 typical things

1. Nutrition(water,fertilizers) - healthy relationship with manager
2. Soil - right projects/product
3. Environment - culture of the team/org/company. 

One will need all three component in right balance to achieve maximum growth. Anything goes out of whack and the plant will stall growth and start dieing. People sometimes attribute all issues to manager (and as leaders one expects their manager to step up and take ownership of the issues) but make sure you understand these components. 

The order of these components as it is very important. You cannot grow your career if you work in an amazing product but if your manager is not the right fit for you. So find a manager that you can trust. Do your homework, sit down with current engineers in the team and find out working style. A "very bad manager" for your working style may be"world's best boss" for someone else. If your manager is good enough but if the product you work on is not challenging then you will see few rewards as well. Same goes for the overall culture of the organization. Leadership matters.

2. Should I stay or go?

Once you create your analysis sheet it will tell you what are the components that are making you feel miserable. Based on this not only you will decide to stay or go but also what you should look for in next team.

1. If you are leaving because of mismatched manager, understand what is the issue here. Is it personal style or mismatch in experience? If you are a professional relatively new in your career, you will have hard time connecting with a manager who has been managing experienced professionals. It takes totally different management styles to coach a newbie vs. an experienced person with industry experience. I am not suggesting you need to look for a manager with shorter or longer career based on this. You want to ask simple questions around this in interviews or informal discussions during your evaluation phase.
2. Project/product mix plays a big part in job satisfaction as well. There are many proven studies that directly connect motivation tied to job satisfaction. My favorite being Dan Pink's motivation video(see below). Find out what you like to do for the career stage you are at. Select the product not because its cool or buzz but go with a mindset of what you need/want to learn.
3. Company/org culture also plays a big part in your career as you can imagine. we will talk more on this in later posts.

3. Ready to pack bags?

Now it's easy right? Not so fast. Find a good timing. Talk to prospective teams (I am hiring), complete your current work, hand over work and say good bye in best way possible. Relationships matter. Last thing you want is to burn bridges. 

Hope you read the whole post. Don't feel frustrated, talk to me(I'm hiring!). Be brave, build career and have fun!

Note: I will follow up with more posts on this so please send comments on what you think about this.