Managing your software development career

One of the things I wish I had done better as a Software Engineer was manage my career. I was in the role of software engineer for over a decade but it wasn't until the last 5 years of that portion of my career that I started to take control. For the first 6 or 7 years of my career I naively believed that if I just did a great job my career would advance. I trusted that my management team and senior leaders would recognize my achievements and I would make my way up the leadership ladder.

While there's nothing wrong with having that much trust in your leadership team, in my opinion, it isn't the right way to manage your career because you have very little ownership of your success or failure. You're career should be a reflection of your capabilities and your desire to succeed. Not everyone wants to move up and not everyone is capable of moving up, but most are.

Here are some tips to help you understand how to navigate your software development career.

 

Start the conversation with your manager

No matter how good your manager is, you have to assume that he or she is unaware of your desire to make it to the next level. Starting the conversation with your manager helps them understand that you want to grow as an engineer. 

One important thing to be aware of is that when you have that conversation you're going to need to be prepared to hear about both the good and the bad about where you're currently at. You need to approach that conversation objectively and with a desire to close the gaps. Getting to the next level in your career is mostly about closing the gaps between where you're at and where a person at the next level already is.

Understand the responsibilities

No one is ready to move on to the next level until they're already over performing at their current level and have begun to perform the duties and responsibilities of the next level. Because of that, understanding the responsibilities of your current level and that of the next level is key to growing and achieving your goals. In particular you should understand:

1. What the expected technical capabilities should be
2. What the volume of code that you should be producing is
3. What the expected level of autonomy is
4. What the scope of influence should be. I.e. what influence you should have on your team, across teams, and within your org
5. What your role should be with respect to your roadmap and the teams day to day activities

Create an achievements doc

If you're anything like me you're not going to remember the important details about your everyday achievements. What I like to do is to keep an achievements doc where I can keep track of the details of my achievements. I don't write in it everyday but I try to re-visit it once a week and make sure that I put my big achievement of the week into it. I like to keep track of what I deliver, who I influenced, and other big decisions I made or contributed to.

I try to keep track of the following information for each achievement:

• What the problem was
• What the proposed solution was
• What the alternatives were i.e. what were the trade-offs
• Why the solution chosen was the correct one
• What the impact the solution had on the business, the team, operations, and/or efficiency

That last point is important. You're going to need a way to measure each of your achievements. Having data to back up what you do is the best way to have an objective conversation with your management.

 

Expand your influence

One thing common to every role is that the more senior you get the more influence you should be having. As a junior engineer you're sphere of influence is largely limited to yourself and your work. As you grow and develop you're sphere of influence expands from just yourself to your team. The more senior engineer you become your influence expands outside of just your team to your org. Expanding your influence means identifying what the sphere of influence should be at your current level and what it should be at the next level.

Get a mentor

As a growing engineer you need an outside influence. You need an objective voice to help you see both your strengths and your weaknesses. A mentor is someone that can help you see the obstacles to your career growth. They can help you grow your existing skills and identify new skills that you need to gain.

Create goals

The last step in career advancement is to create a set of goals. These goals should represent a mix of things it takes to be successful in your current role as well as things it takes to show that you're already working at the next level. Your goals should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound) and should be something that you review directly with your manager periodically (at least once a quarter). Goals are your best way to make sure you're on track for career advancement.