I have been working for about 25 years.
My first job was a sales job that I hated every day, but I did it anyways for the next ten months.
As an engineering graduate, I expected a bright future for myself, but market realities were more brutal than my fragile dreams. Most engineering jobs required 3 to 5 years of experience, but I was a fresher. So I accepted what was available for me, a sales job. My dreams for an engineering career shattered as glass fell on the hard floor.
That was one of the darkest times I have faced.
But I was determined to find a way to build my career.
10 months later, I moved past this sales job to a six-month programming course.
I spent 12 to 16 hours daily at the institute during this course. I went home only to sleep, eat and return for another 16 hours shift. Microsoft ASP was a new web development technology and went all in to learn, practice, and build projects.
I was desperate to get my first programming job, and my hard work resulted in 3 job offers as a web developer.
That was the beginning of my 23 years long development career.
During the first 2 years of my programming career, I tried to learn & understand everything I came across, such as new programming concepts, tools, source control, distributed architecture, IIS web servers, and so much more.
I spent too many late hours in the office working, learning, and troubleshooting.
You learn most when you are troubleshooting a problem. For example, you followed the steps to configure a web server, but it did not work. Then you will end up spending 4x time to find the missing step in the configuration.
It will be frustrating, but you will learn a few extra things during that troubleshooting.
So never run away from problems.
If you want to build a long-lasting career in development, then troubleshooting, problem-solving, and staying calm when nothing is working your way are a few qualities to adopt. It is sad but an honest truth; you will earn more reputation while fixing a production issue than writing well-structured code.
Challenging situations are the best situation to go the extra mile, solve and build your confidence.
In 2002, Microsoft released .NET, and I jumped on it.
Microsoft .NET was a game changer for me. By then, I was proficient in ASP, VB, and SQL Server, so I started self-learning ASP.NET and VB.NET. To practice, I migrated my 9-to-5 projects into .NET.
Later, I secured a job as a senior .Net developer in a much bigger company.
It was a big breakthrough moment for me.
In about 3 years, I moved from a sales job I hated daily to a senior developer position in India’s 5th most prominent software development company. It was remarkable and life-changing.
It was remarkable and life-changing.
My ability to go the extra mile, work late hours, stay calm during outages and keep an eye on the latest trend are some of the critical things which worked well for me.
Devote your first 2-3 years to working hard, accepting opportunities, let your interest and company need show you the path.
You will see tremendous results.
During the last 25 years, I have seen many ups & down.
The most important realization is that your career is a very long journey.
It will take many turns; some can be planned, others can’t. Your passion will give you the energy to stay excited, and patience will strengthen you in tough times.
Possibilities are endless and beyond your imagination.
Everyone’s career path will be different.
In fact, that’s the beauty of a development career: it can take many shapes & directions. Following are a few ways to look at your career growth journey.
- Technology-based: Frontend, Backend, Full Stack, DevOps, Data Science, etc.
- Title-based: Junior, Intermediate, Senior, Lead, Manager, Architect etc.
- Role-based: Developer, Analyst, Product Owner, Scrum Master, Project Manager etc.
- Company size: small, mid-size, and large-size companies.
- Company reputation: No-name companies, somewhat known companies and highly reputed organizations such as Google.
- Money: low salary, mid-range, high salary.
During my initial days, my goal was to become a senior developer in a highly reputed company.
So how do you plan your career?
During your first 2-3 years, you want to be open to trying and learning whatever opportunities come to you.
Let your interest and company need to show you the path.
Once you have survived the first 2-3 years, you will have more leverage to guide your path.
There are two methods I have used to plan my career. I will call them bottom-up & top-down approaches. They are two angles to look at the same thing.
Let’s dive in,
In the bottom-up approach, you predict where you will reach in the next 3 to 5 years.
In this method, you project where you will be in 3 to 5 years if you continue to do what you are doing. Many factors are involved in such a prediction, but you should be able to get an idea of your growth possibilities. Such predictions can provide you with a foundation for your career planning.
Technology & title-based career paths are easier to predict using this approach.
Most companies have an organizational hierarchy to illustrate your career progression. Your manager or HR (human resource) can also share the typical career progression for your role.
You can use that information in building your projections.
In the top-down approach, you decide where to be in 3 to 5 years.
In this method, you pick your goals to achieve in the next 3 to 5 years and then identify all the steps you must take. In this approach, you are intentional about your desired position and outcomes.
This works well when you have clarity about your career path, interest, skills, and the lifestyle you want.
To set your 3 to 5 years goals, you list all possible options, and efforts to achieve them, matching them with your interest, skills, experience, and the type of life you want.
Based on your analysis, you pick your career path and identify steps you will have to take to reach there. These steps include acquiring new skills, experience, certification, and education.
By planning ahead, you can set your direction and accelerate your growth.
I used a hybrid approach to plan my career.
I used 2nd approach to set my long-term direction of becoming a senior developer in a highly reputed company. Then I used 1st approach for short-term strategies such as learning the new .NET language. I used .NET as an opportunity to get ahead of others and join a few developers who knew it well.
It worked well for me.
You can always identify the latest programming trend to get ahead of other developers.
ReactNative, Flutter, Cloud Dev, VR, AI, Web3, and Blockchain are incredible opportunities for you to join a small subset of developers. But remember, you have to pick a trend and give 100% to it.
Stick with it and go deeper so that you know it well.
Takeaways
Build your foundation during the first 2 years of your career.
Work hard, go the extra mile and try to build a deeper understanding of things you are working on. You only have a little leverage during the first 2 years. The best strategy for beginner devs is to learn as much as possible from assigned tasks & projects.
Solve challenges you face and share solutions with others.
That will make you better than other developers.
Once you build your foundation, be intentional in shaping your career.
Assess your skills, experience, interest, latest trends, and opportunities to pick a direction and build your career path. Be strategic about spending at least one hour daily on readings, learnings, and side-projects to ensure you are moving ahead. Build your surrounding with like-minded people who are dedicated to building their careers.
Remember, every challenging situation will add up to your experience.
You need to be ready when an opportunity comes your way.
I would love to hear from you.
I am offering FREE 60-minute 1:1 mentoring sessions to five developers with 2 to 3 years of experience.
Only 5 spots are available. First come, first serve. I will discuss your career goals, outlining a strategy and action plan. I will give you specific recommendations on your goals, time management challenges and action plans to solve them.