What Eight Years Of Being Stuck Taught Me About Career Paths

Career path is more like spaghetti - the cooked one not the dry uncooked one!

When I started my career, I was hit with that classic question: “So, where do you see yourself in five to ten years?”

What!? Five to ten years!? I had zero idea. 😞

The advice I got was: climb the career ladder as fast as you can. “Aim for a promotion every couple of years”. I took those words to heart.

I’m a Senior Engineering Manager now, and you may think it was one smooth ladder for me. Nope. My expectation and reality couldn’t have been more different.

Two years into my career, I got the promotion to senior engineer. I was convinced I was on the right track. And then, things started to wobble.

For the next eight years, I couldn’t make the leap to lead engineer. This lack of promotion seemed like lack of growth. But it taught me something invaluable.

Career growth isn’t like school, where you move up a grade every year. Staying in the same place doesn’t mean you’re failing.

In fact, a career path is rarely linear, and that’s a good thing.

Here are my four key learnings that will help you understand why a non-linear path could be better.

Vertical Growth Options are Finite

As you climb the career ladder, you’ll notice it’s more of a pyramid. The higher you go, the fewer roles there are. Beyond a certain point, promotions slow down. And if you focus only on vertical growth, you’ll get frustrated.

Instead, consider building complementary skills like mentoring and project management for a well-rounded growth. These skills would be valuable no matter which path you take in the future.

Second, take a look at lateral roles. If you’re a devops engineer, how about the new role in the MLOps team? Have you thought about a QA role? Yes, it may mean you restart at a lower level but you grow in other technology areas.

Promotions Come at a Cost

At Intel, I worked with a senior engineer named Mark, who retired after 30+ years in the same role. He had worked with legends like Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs!

When I asked him what it was like to stay a senior engineer for his entire career, he said, “I got to go home at 5 p.m. every day, unlike your boss.”

That stuck with me. I saw that promotions often come with a price tag. It could be in the form of longer hours, more responsibilities, or more stress.

I’m not saying you should stay away from promotions. But before you chase that next title, ask yourself: Am I ready to pay the price? Is it better for my health and family to hang out in this position for a while?

Organizations Shift all the Time

Mergers, acquisitions, reorgs, layoffs - I have been through them all. Titles don’t always translate across companies.

If you’re caught in such a transition, focusing on titles alone will leave you disappointed. Instead think about scope, responsibility, and impact of your role.

In one of the acquisitions, my title went a level down. But it came with better compensation, benefits, and work life balance - things I didn’t appreciate at that time.

Even industry and technology trends change. These are changes beyond your control and happen very often. Be ready to upskill and adjust your expectations. Make lemonade!

Careers go through Phases

Just like the economic cycle, your career will have its ups and downs. You might face personal challenges, or there could be periods where your own growth stalls.

We don't feel like superheroes everyday. And that’s fine!

I used to “escape” these phases by working harder and longer. Eventually I learned to embrace instead of fighting. It’s ok to not get that “Exceeds Expectations” rating every year. It’s better than burning out.

Most of us will work for around forty years. A couple of years of stagnation won’t hurt. In fact, it might help you build long-term resilience.

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💡In this post, I focused on how we should approach our career as individuals. But I believe the responsibility shouldn’t entirely be on us. A lot of work needs to happen in our organizations to make career paths less rigid.

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The One Thing

If you take away one thing from this article, let it be this:

Career growth isn’t like being in school, where you move up a grade every year. Staying in the same place doesn’t mean you’re failing.

Looking back, those eight years laid an important foundation for the skills and connections that serve me today.

Sure, some peoples’ careers go straight up like uncooked spaghetti, but I’ll take the cooked mess of spaghetti any day. After all, it’s my spaghetti and no one else has the exact same dish!

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More Resources

As humans, we’re constantly discovering ourselves. What if one day you start hating software? You shouldn’t feel obligated to stay put just because it will mess up your “career path”. Don’t be afraid to go back and forth or sideways.

Here are two resources I enjoyed that can help you explore the topic more:

• One Person/Multiple Careers - Book and Talks at Google by Marci Alboher

• Squiggly Careers - Book and Ted Talk by Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper

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