What Advice I Would Give Myself If I Were Starting My Career in 2025.

As 2024 is in the rear view mirror and 2025 is upon us, I decided to do some self reflection. I asked myself a question, "If you were starting your career in 2025 what would you want yourself to know?" After all, a lot has changed in the decades since I began my career in technology.

When I started my career, I still had ties to the prior generation of employees. They had expectations of staying with a company for decades. Additionally, they eagerly anticipated climbing the corporate ladder at a single company. Nowadays, we live in a new world which has broken nearly all ties to prior working life.

I came up with a few broad categories for which I would put advice:

• Professional relationships
• Mentors
• Communication
• Layoffs
• Pivots
• Career Planning

Professional Relationships

Recent statistics from the technology industry put the average duration of a job at a company at between three to five years. Which means, there is a high probability you will spend your career at multiple companies. Although a position might not endure the test of time, your relationship with your peers, and leadership really does matter.

1. Never burn a bridge! Many people have said this before, but it is really true. You just never know who you might be working with again. There is a good chance that if you remain in the same geographic job market, you will see the same faces again in some capacity.
2. Your reputation in industry matters. If you work in a small industry where everyone knows each other, you will live and die by your reputation. A quick phone call by a hiring manager will often result on an off-the-record dosier of your work history. Are you easy to work with? Are you punctual? Do you have a good work ethic? Are you the sum of your resume? These things matter.
3. Your peers will be the crucial social grid you need to get your next job. As you and your peers progress in your careers, you will be in the position to help hire each other. Some of your peers will progress into leadership quicker, and may want to hire people they already know and trust.

Multiple times in industry I have had a peer recommend me for a job. Sometimes these positions were not posted or known to anyone outside of the company. A peer recommendation can go a long way in the job screening process.

Mentors

Sadly, a lot of companies do not value mentorship as much as they should. A good mentor can pass on fantastic wisdom that you simply cannot get from school, a book, or an online course. I look back in my career and I have had some exceptional mentors:

• A former manager, a former military officer, who taught me key leadership and management principles. Simply put -- he taught me how to get things done, set expectations, and hold people accountable.
• A senior engineer who took me under his wing when I got out of college. He taught me proper engineering etiquette and behavior. More importantly, he stressed to me how important my communication skills would be.
• A department manager at a manager defense contractor -- he was a graduate of their prestigious internal management school. He introduced me to the principles of people management. He also made me read Peter Drucker, and the works of Dr. Deming. He encouraged me to understand the ecosystem that an engineering project lives in.
• My uncle -- he was the engineering role model. He worked in the fabrication facility on a major microprocessor. He taught me about career life cycle and how long you can actually expect to work. He also stressed that communication needed to be short and to the point.
• An engineering manager at a slot machine company -- He taught me what it meant to be in casino gaming. He was a virtual encyclopedia of casino gaming knowledge. He opened my eyes to how the industry worked. No book contained the knowledge he provided me!
• A film director in Hollywood -- the man spent hours on the telephone teaching me how the film industry worked. He was a virtual master class in the business of filmmaking. He also taught me the soft skills that were required to work in an artistic endeavor that had business requirements.
• A local area television star in Boston -- he spent a day with me that I affectionately refer to as, "Four years of film school in 8 hours." He was an amazing man with amazing wisdom who shared his knowledge generously. His 8 hours taught me about media, and how to design content so it can be digested quickly, and easily.

Not everyone will have the opportunity to meet such people. However, it is each person's duty to try to find people to learn from. Nearly anyone in industry who has been around a while has nuggets of wisdom to share. Take advantage of any situation when someone is willing to teach.

At a prior position I made an earnest attempt at putting in a formal mentoring program. We did this by engaging subject matter experts already on staff. Each subject matter expert, SME, was tasked with giving a one hour lecture on keys areas of our tech stack and code base. We recorded these lectures, and turned them into what we called The Level Up Program. A simple one hour lecture turned into a one hour mentorship session for all of the staff. More importantly, this institutionalized our knowledge, and allowed staff to make smarter decisions. It the net effect of raising the organization's intelligence and capabilities.

Communication

Effective communicators are the most valuable asset in any organization. So many problems, crises, and code red situations could be avoided by simply by communicating better. Imagine if an organization could get rid of ambiguity.

Nearly every member of staff is good at their specific discipline. The real test is if the staff member can effectively communication their work to someone who is not skilled in their discipline. Engineers need to be able to relate to product managers, and other stakeholders. While product managers need to be able to explain what they need to engineers.

Additionally, the world has moved to more online communication in real time. So much of the technology world does a bulk of their communication through things like Slack. Knowing how to express oneself in a text medium is crucial.

More importantly, remote staff need to be in constant communication. They need to be visible. Managers must have visibility to what is going on, as well as their peers on staff. There is nothing worse than relying on someone to work on a problem who simply goes dark.

Furthermore, solid communication builds trust:

1. Transparency and Clarity -- when communication is transparent, team members feel confident that there are no hidden agendas. Additionally, each team member will understand a project's goals, expectations, and deliverables.
2. Consistency -- regular updates to team members build confidence that nobody is being left in the dark, changes are being conveyed, and everyone is pulling their weight.
3. Encourages Openness -- active listening, and listening to feedback creates an environment of mutual respect, and allows for the opportunity for the team to treat each other's intentions.
4. Promotes Accountability -- when everyone knows what is going on, it is easier for team members to hold themselves accountable, and ensure that everyone is committed to delivering on promises.
5. Builds Relationships -- frequent and meaningingful interactions with team members allows the team to know everyone's strengths, weaknesses, and working styles. More importantly, trust is cultivated as team members develop personal connections and build empathy for each other.
6. Conflict Resolution -- and this is a big one. Prompt and effective communication addresses a conflict before it escalates into a large problem, or worse requires involvement from leadership.

Lastly, command of the written word is key to developing beyond regular day to day technical tasks. Learning how to develop effective documentations, emails, and slide decks, are extremely valuable to a team and organization. Learning how to distill something very complicated down to a set of concise talking points is extremely important. Also important is being able to explain how to replicate a process in concise numbered steps.

Quick example -- a long time ago I worked with a brilliant mathematician. His work was innovative and clever. However, his documentation could not be deciphered by any other human being besides himself. He was unable to explain his math in concise steps to the engineering staff. This resulted in his game being built incorrectly, and causing a lot of unnecessary churn.

Layoffs

I call this one the big elephant stinking up the room. The sad truth is in the modern world layoffs are a part of life. Nearly everyone will be subjected to some kind of downsizing or reduction in force in their career.

If you are just starting your career, I cannot stress this enough -- keep six months expenses in the bank at all times:

• COBRA for health care coverage is nearly always more expensive than buying health insurance on the open market.
• Health insurance, outside of rent or mortgage, will be one of your biggest expenses.
• Unemployment insurance varies from state to state. Many states are not very generous with the amount, and the duration can be quite short. DO NOT RELY UPON UNEMPLOYMENT.

After being laid off:

1. Take a break. Take a few days to breathe and decompress. The first time you are laid off is always the most traumatic.
2. Understand that is very likely it is not your fault. The company cut costs. Remember, all staff are expendable and replaceable. (This includes the people who made the decision to lay you off.)
3. Read the separation agreement thoroughly. More often than not it will specify what the company expects from you in order to get your severance money. As soon as you are comfortable, sign and return the agreement.

Remember: Every day you go to your job can be your last. You are an employee at will. Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. Ideally, you will be at your employer for many years.

Pivots

Careers must evolve in order to stay relevant. Technology stacks change overnight. Jobs that were once hot can go cold. What you will be doing today may be very different than what you are doing five years from now:

• I watched technology stacks go from C/C++ to C# to Javascript to Go/Rust and so forth.
• In the video game industry I watched things go from custom game engines to Flash, to XNA, to Unity and Unreal.
• I started working in Unix, then AIX, then Solaris, then Windows, then Linux, the Mac OS, then back to Windows.
• I went from application software for Unix workstations to embedded systems to speech recognition, to casino games, to engineering leadership, to engineering management.

Throughout my decades in industry I have had to keep re-inventing myself. New technology can make your job obsolete overnight. AI is here to stay. The smart money is on those who invest in learning it, and become proficient.

I cannot stress this enough you must be in a constant state of learning:

1. Read blogs
2. Follow technology influencers
3. Take courses on Linkedin Learning, Udemy, etc.
4. Use companies like Humble Bundle, and Fanatical Bundle to build out your reference libraries.

Ultimately, you are responsible for your own career progression. If you want to move forward, you have to provide yourself with the knowledge that will create opportunities to move yourself forward. A manager can help guide your career. A manager can make suggestions, but at the end of the day, it's up to you to put in the effort. There nothing better than initiative!

You are in charge of your own career progression.

Career Planning

The short version of this: Plan for the last day of your career the first day of your career. Sounds rather like a downer, doesn't it? You would be surprised how many people neglect to plan ahead.

Our careers have definitive phases:

• Starting / Ramping up -- the early years.
• Prime Earning Years -- where you career matures, and you become mid level to senior.
• Sunsetting -- the final years where your career will ultimately wind down.

This is the cycle of life and it happens to everyone. You do not see a lot of people in industry past a certain age. That is reality. You also rarely see retirement parties or formal retirement announcements. Think about that. People just kinda stop working.

So what does this mean? It means some very simple planning:

1. Most people do not get pensions anymore, so your 401k and a Roth IRA are one of the few ways you are going to successfully invest throughout your career in retirement. If your company offers investing through a brokerage house, I recommend you speak to a financial planner there and get some solid advice.
2. Live under your means. This frees up cash for other things. a.) Additional investing. b.) Creating a side hustle. c.) Having emergency money. d.) Aggressively paying off debt.
3. Having a plan to have all of your major debt paid off by a realistic date. It is not realistic to carry major debt in your 80s!

Your career is finite! Always be aware that your career, at most, will go about 40 years. (Plus or minus a few years depending on circumstances.)

Some Sobering Statistics

I cut and pasted these from some research. I have left them unedited as I think they speak for themselves. Be aware these statistics:

• Lack of Retirement Savings: Approximately 46% of U.S. households reported having no retirement savings as of 2022. Among those aged 50 to 54—the group most likely to have retirement accounts—only 63% had any savings, with 35% having more than $100,000 saved.
• Reliance on Social Security: About one-third of Americans plan to rely solely on Social Security for retirement income. Given that the average monthly Social Security benefit is $1,907 as of 2024, this amount may be insufficient to cover basic living expenses during retirement.
• Inadequate Savings Rates: Many individuals contribute only 6% or less of their income to retirement savings, which may be insufficient for a comfortable retirement. Financial experts often recommend saving between 10% to 15% of gross income to better prepare for retirement.
• Public Pension Underfunding: State and local government pension plans, covering over 20 million Americans, face a combined funding shortfall of approximately $1.6 trillion. This underfunding poses risks to the retirement security of public sector employees.

Sadly, retirement is not guaranteed. Generation X is the first generation of workers who have had to grapple with this new uncertainty. Learn from our mistakes. Learn from our ignorance.

The Side Hustle

Everyone should consider having one. It could be as simple as selling on Etsy or as complicated as a major endeavor to start a software company. It doesn't matter, ideally, if you can generate a secondary form of income you can weather multiple financial storms.

Storms will come, you can count on it:

• The collapse of the defense industry in the early 1990s. (Tons of engineers went looking for work.)
• The Dot Com Crash -- all those new internet companies seemingly failed at once.
• The 2008 Housing Crisis -- the entire nation went into a economic tailspin.
• 2024 -- Might as well have been called, "The Year of the Layoff."

These are just some of the storms I have seen in my career. Nobody is immune to changing economic conditions. Therefore, having a secondary income stream can be very beneficial. More importantly, a side hustle can provide you with new skills:

1. In one side hustle -- I wrote multiple video games. I was able to teach myself game design, and how to self publish a game.
2. In another side hustle -- I wrote a book. The book sold for almost 15 years and ended up in libraries all over the country. I learned how to work with a copy editor. I learned how to do graphic design and layout. I also learned how to take an idea and transpose it into a piece of literature.
3. In another side hustle -- I designed movie props that ended up in science fiction films that are now on streaming services. I taught myself all kinds of new creative techniques.

Throughout my career I have watched multiple people create a side hustle that either funded parts of their life or became their new full time job:

1. One co-worker created a video game during covid that turned into his next full time job and generated enough revenue that he never needed to work for someone else again.
2. Another co-worker created a niche training site and education problem. This is now his full time job which has become lucrative for him.
3. A co worker created her own on line jewelry company which is being used to fund her children's education.
4. Another coworker bought distressed homes, rehabbed them, and rented them out to create passive income.

Conclusion

2024 was a tumultuous year for many people. It inspired me to pass on advice to the next generation. The next generation will need to be mindful of their professional relationships, seek out mentors, master communication skills, have situational awareness of layoffs, make pivots, and plan for the end of their careers.