DREAM JOB As A Software Engineer But... I'm Stagnating!

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all right folks I'm headed home from the office it's a long day it's uh it's after 7 o' feel like I'm going be having a few long days over the next little while um go to Reddit for this topic I think it's an interesting one 10 years of experience at a dream job with quotes around it and but concerned about growth so they say uh they have minimal supervision their job is to build prototypes and write up reports on how new tech could be used to positively Drive company growth how do I continue to grow as an engineer while in this job I feel like I've peaked so the reason I like this I'm going to keep reading though but I I like it because I spent a ton of my career uh doing prototyping so I like this one sticks out to me um

they say I really have a few choices management stay at this level work at a bigger firm with people higher up SL more experience than me so they're saying that's feeling like it's getting hard to find switch Fields with in Tech switch careers entirely start a business consultant just work on side projects and have fun so they said I got uh I love to code I got into this 10 years ago because of because of that with the proliferation of AI tools though where it's headed the average coding job isn't that much fun anymore I don't know if this post will attract hate or not but looking for other people's opinions so you're going to get my opinion um so I think it's cool I think it's a cool topic um excited to talk about this it say 30 minutes to get home which means

hopefully I've beat all of the traffic finally uh and then I'm driving to the office in the morning be back here tomorrow um so friendly reminder if you want your questions answered leave them in the comments happy to go through that I've been trying to get to all of them if you have uh questions that you my God this thing has got to stop if you have questions that are a little bit more involved and or you want to be kept Anonymous look for Dev leader on social media uh that's my main Channel on YouTube it's also my my sort of personal brand uh that I use for all of social media send me a message uh Nick centino on LinkedIn if you want uh my profile is should be open for messages if you want to send me one and yeah with that said

let's kind of chat through this so um it's kind of interesting I guess it it sounds like and I kind of trying to Channel what this person's uh perspective is it sounds like they're saying they've peaked but I don't really know when I hear them talk about their situation like I don't really get why they feel they've Peak necessarily so it's kind of hard to to address this with specifics uh but it sounds like I don't know like maybe losing a little bit of Interest like it seems like it's kind of just uh on almost like on repeat which is kind of interesting to me because um and maybe when you think about prototyping like this should be if anything should be the most interesting thing right this is usually where you get to work with new technology try things out um this is a

space that a lot of people um are are very interested or it seems shiny right it's like it's cool because it's new technology and you get to try things out um by the way it's not for everyone because prototyping you throw a lot of stuff away so um yeah kind of interested in I would love to understand further like what what it is they feel like they're looking for because I think that's kind of what's missing here I get that they're saying with AI and the direction they see the industry going they're like it seems like it's they kind of phrased it like taking some of the fun out of it um so maybe when it comes to problem solving and and digging into things they're saying like I don't know AI kind of does a bunch of that for us now um you know

I'm kind of putting words into their mouth just trying to to navigate what they're saying here but uh maybe that's the case for them right like the way that things are going it's no longer appealing so that's part of it might want to touch on that depending on um they listed a a few options right I'm obviously not going to know the perfect thing for them that's for them to decide um they T they mention management right uh I would say like just to kind of call this one out right out uh from the beginning I would say like management should not be a thing that's like I don't know uh just because it's an option uh I would say like don't just go into it because it's available um I would say go into it if you find that leading people and like focusing

on working with people is where you want to be because if you think that AI is taking away from your interest in coding and you really like to code and then you want to talk about management I think that this would be devastating um for someone that really wants to focus on code because you will have less and less time to be coding this truck is going to want to get in front of me cuz the guy in front of me was going too slow excellent but yeah I don't think um you know I know it's listed there that he said management but unless you know unless in his career he's been like hey you know I've been working on projects and uh leading small teams and I really enjoy like helping people grow leading them if that's the thing that stands out then like

hell yeah management is a great fit for that but what I'm hearing in the message is like it's you know Ai and how things are going is taking away from the joy of writing code in my personal experience I love to write code but um but management for me is like my full-time job right I've been doing this for 12 plus years now but I write code every single day outside of work because I love to do it so I'm I'm able to balance those things out like that's the that's the thing that works for me personally I really enjoy being able to help people I like spending time helping people grow in their careers um helping them be successful so that's great but I I didn't have to give up coding altogether because I do it outside of work now I'm a total nerd

in that regard and you might not be and that's fine but in this case for this individual I would say you might want to be careful going into management unless you can find management roles which exist where you're going to be coding alongside the team generally I would say either smaller companies or smaller teams it's uh it's more common um you know you'll hear in startups like you have to wear many hats one of those hats as a manager is often programming at the same time but at a certain scale for team sizes it's not really feasible uh I've talked about this many times to be to be coding alongside your team probably means that you're not managing on the people side as effectively as you could but that's management so let's park that one I just wanted to spend a little bit of time

on it from the beginning um I think something that they called out that's interesting is like you know being able to surround yourself with you know potentially at a bigger company with uh smarter people you know kind of like they might feel like they're becoming like a bigger fish in the pond where they're at and you know perhaps relocating to a larger company or maybe not even necessarily larger but different uh because larger doesn't necessarily solve that arguably it does statistically but um going to a different company and having a different environment surrounding you different people right that might mean that you're around people that are that you perceive as being you know more accomplished than you better than you and you can learn from them right maybe like I said this person feels like where they're at they're the person that everyone's looking up

to and that's like I mean that's a huge accomplishment to be able to kind of grow in a space where people are doing that um you know where I used to work I I feel like I was reaching that point where I'm not saying that people looked up to me because it was like oh my God you're the best programmer but I think a lot of people were like hey you've been here for so long you can help us with these different things and like you seem to know these things so like that was a cool experience for me but you know at the same time like I can kind of relate to this person that the company and they did after I left they' have to scale like significantly more for me to be surrounded by more people that I'm like hey I can

really look up to this person in terms of what they've accomplished and learned from them so like I can I can understand that but that's a decision like that person's going to have to make if that's truly the thing that drives them right like do I need to surround myself with other people to level up sorry that person was gatekeeping the fast lane um they were going slow enough in the lane beside the fast lane that I couldn't like get up to speed but we did it um so just to kind of circle back to this list of points or like these opportunities that this person listed out the the main takeaway that I want anyone to have from watching this video is like at the end of the day like you need to be the person that decides on your path forward right um

I think this is a cop I can't tell though and I'm in the fast lane so I'd like to go fast but like I think it's a cop but it also just might be a Toyota um we'll creep up a little bit more it's not a cop okay um yeah at the end of the day like you need to decide what motivates you in your career growth so I can understand if you want to turn to Reddit you know get some perspective the same thing happens like I'm answering questions for people that leave comments or message me and I just look at it like offering perspective but so I'm not like craing on this person for asking Reddit I'm just saying that like at the end of the day this person needs to be the one to make a decision so I'm not going to

sit here and say oh the obvious path is do whatever I don't know what their motivations are like I said if they want to lead people like that's a great opportunity move into management if you're like I want to surround myself with smarter people than me like maybe you need a different change of environment um it could also be there's a couple of things I wanted to touch on with this um they said like maybe I just stay where I'm at like keep doing what I'm doing but they also mentioned at the end of their list like you know do some side projects that might be a very interesting thing to consider the other one was consult you might be able to combine all of these right depending on what your work allows and and your work life balance that you'd like to have if

you're very comfortable at work that doesn't mean that work is the only thing depending on where you're working the only thing that you can be doing um that's like number one your place to grow skills and number two a place to earn money so if we make the assumption this person stays in their role one option is that they're like hey I'm not getting a lot of opportunity to focus on some of the coding that I would like to do yeah like why not go work on some side projects it sounds like this person really likes to code which is great like go yeah go do some more of that right if you don't have time outside of work that's where I think it gets tricky because if you're if you're needs are not being met with respect to the code you're writing but you

also don't have capacity for more of that outside of work I think that that's like changing domains changing teams right like you need to use your work time to get that fulfilled and that's how I would look at that I think I don't have time outside of work because you don't want to disrupt the work life balance you have nothing wrong with that but I'm also not having my needs met with respect to technical growth or coding Focus whatever it is I think then you need to start to change your environment your team the domain that you're working in and kind of pick between those things or a variety of them to be able to have that sense of fulfillment in your career um sometimes when people do this kind of exercise like it can be a little scary because they're like well does that

mean I take a step back in terms of compensation um this is already pretty comfortable does that mean something else is you know by definition like going to be more uncomfortable because it's more unknown um the answer is like yeah maybe but you you need to make a decision about like are you just fine being complacent and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that but I know for myself that's like one of my fears is just becoming too complacent so it would be hard for me to make an adjustment but if I realize like a like I really am just being totally complacent where I'm at I would probably need to find ways to kick myself into gear so let's assume they're not changing roles I kind of touched on the side project stuff cuz like for me that's kind of what's going on

right like I'm not saying saying I'm complacent to my role but I'm saying I love to code and I am in a career path that does not really afford a lot of time to code it's not an expectation of my role but because I love to do it I make time for that outside of work cool that works for me may not work for you totally fine the other direction that this person could go cuz they listed consulting or starting a business is like that doesn't necessarily have to be depending where you work doesn't have to be something where you're like I need to leave my job and do this you might be able to do some type of work on the side so maybe you can consult doing particular types of things on the side or maybe truly it is something where you're like

I just want to leave my job and pursue this kind of thing full-time or part-time depending on your finances um like we don't know this person's finances I don't know your finances if you're watching this video um but maybe you're in a position where you're like I can just walk away from work and consult uh and start that up and I'm comfortable getting business but I think that these are like these become really set like focused around work life balance personally that's how I look at that um and again like speaking from experience uh I I know where I'm comfortable at with my work life balance which is basically uh work uh and a little bit of life and uh truthfully and I'm not saying this like sarcastically or factiously like I'm very lucky to have my wife because uh I mean for many reasons

but uh one of the things that she's very good at even though she might think I'm getting annoyed by her at sometimes is like she's very good at making me realize like there's more things outside of work um so my my compass that I have for uh work life balance is clearly pretty busted uh but she's very good at at kind of reminding me of like the other things that are important in life so I think if it weren't for her or if I was you know married to someone else and I didn't have like a partner that was reminding me of these things you know I don't I don't think that I have like a healthy work life balance like set point if you will um so it's good to have her for that I think I really value that um but I don't

know this person's situation I don't know yours either right uh I know that for the work that I take on like I work my 9 to-5 job uh and you know there's situations like the past few weeks kind of thing where I might be going into the office more starting earlier ending later but like I get it I've worked at a startup for 8 years and worked nonstop like I I don't have a problem with having to do that periodically I don't think I can sustain it like around the clock anymore but I get it but if I wasn't doing that with work like I I do this with content creation I do this with course creation I do this like I build brand ghost outside of work right like I am creating a social media content scheduling platform like I use it for my

own stuff but I work on these things outside of work because I love to build and I love to create things so again going back to this person's situation like they really need to answer for themselves like what they what they want like what do you actually want out of this uh maybe the the reason they ask this is they're looking for other ideas and that's totally cool right like different perspective maybe ideas they hadn't considered but one of the things they talk about specifically is growing as an engineer so I know in this discussion so far I talked about the management path okay growing as a manager is not necessarily growing as an engineer specifically it's a it's a different career path doesn't mean you neglect engineering but it's a different career path then I've been talking about work life balance with like are

you doing side projects just for fun are you you're going to go consult and do a business maybe that's on the side on top of work but the focus has been work life balance they're saying I want to grow as an engineer so in my mind that suggests that like they're not necessarily totally interested in taking their foot off the gas in terms of like um I don't know like being more surrounded by engineering things and it also sounds like the way that they're describing their role is it's like kind of comfy so again it makes me think that they might be kind of hungry for something more like something different something more but growing as an engineer can mean so many things it doesn't just mean working more but like again I don't know where this person has weaknesses or or opportunities to lean

into their strengths and I wanted to take the last bit of this conversation to talk about one of the comments I saw that it might be the highest up voted one but I think that this is a great one because this actually reflects some experience that I have that I think worked very very well and given that I don't do prototyping work anymore and like kind of change my career path in this regard this is something that I would also recommend to people that are doing a lot of prototyping work and want to grow so one of the limiting factors when doing prototyping work generally is if you're constantly going to be on the team that's rapidly prototyping things trying things out yes you get exposed to cool new things unfortunately you have to can and throw out most of what you're building because it's

just experiments to answer questions at the end of the day and if you answer the question and that means that you're not moving forward with some technology great like whatever you built is getting thrown out it's not that it's wasted because you answered questions with it but you don't use the technology anymore you move on maybe you pick it up later who knows but this creates a situation where you're doing a very particular type of work and generally what you're not doing is build and maintaining systems it ends up being a lot more purpose-built stuff um and sometimes you know a lot of people don't like to think about the the maintenance work and the the Legacy systems and the tech debt they're like all that stuff I hate it but there's a lot of engineering that goes into that because you have tons of

interestes and constraints super brief example we were talking today uh the Developers for brand ghost were messaging me we were discussing kind of uh a feature that we've been talking about building and I was sitting there going like I agree that we should go build this or try to but I'm like man this would be so easy or so much more easy to go build if we didn't have a lot of the inplace infrastructure a lot of the pre-built assumptions that we have like there's going to be so much work for me to to make this happen with our live data that already exists so it's like disproportionately more uh more like uh Tech dead or like migration work than just like new feature building but this is a type of thing that happens in real software engineering like how do we navigate these things

so what this person in the comments had recommended that was a really good tangent wasn't it uh was that they said why don't you go prototype something and for the teams that are actually going to take the Prototype work and go integrated into the product why don't you go like do that with them and kind of be the consultant or however you want to shape the role then go do that and integrate with them because this is such a good opportunity to get back into the other stuff that we're doing as software Engineers it's not pure prototyping then once that's steady state and working maybe go back to prototyping so when I before I left magnet forensics this was actually like one of the the thoughts that we were trying to form up and I don't know how they operate now um I know people

that still work there uh very closely but I don't talk to them about like the operations of work and if I were to I would expect that they aren't Keen to disclose because that's their personal business but um one of the things we talked about doing was this idea of like once it's ready and like say you're not throwing out a prototype you're like we want to go forward with this like how does it look to go hand that work over to the team because if you're just kind of like throwing it over to them and saying hey you go figure it out now like there's a really big missed opportunity there and historically we had some interesting experiences where like um just to give you a brief example like we were building digital forensics tools and I ran a prototyping team and and when

we would prototype things like we built a bunch of stuff out and then we had to go find effective ways to go ramp up the other team that was going to go take that over and sometimes we didn't do it effectively other times we did one of my last uh examples was actually something that I was purely building as a as a prototype not even from like the the team like I I just took this project on as a solo develop even though I was developing and managing for other teams anyway built this thing and then we said uh the CTO was like awesome cool like how do we ship it and it's like well we have to we actually have to integrate it into the product like what do you want this to look like so um in this case I I sort of

volunteered like I will go work with the team to go to do the integration and and kind of an interesting experience because I think we had planned for this but what ended up happening was like I presented it to them showed them the Code they had a couple of their more senior people walk through it and not that I'm going to toot my own horn here but at the time one of the senior Engineers was like yeah like we can just take this and this will integrate fine like we we actually don't need you to like do the integration or we don't have to rewrite it like this will just work and I think I got very lucky because what they were integrating it to I had already spent years building um because I was one of the developers on it before so the point

is that there's these interesting opportunities to go back to the teams that are going to integrate and sort of you'd have to figure out how this works from like a a team Dynamic but like become part of that team be the consultant be the the tech lead for it partner with the tech Tech lead that's on it however that needs to look and um yeah I think like personally that would be what I recommend you can get some really cool visibility you can demonstrate more impact that way right it's not hey here's just this cool prototype we built and then when it comes time to talk about impact you're like actually nothing that I work on has a clear impact for the business because I'm not part of Landing any of it um you feel very disconnected in that regard I'm not saying there's zero

impact I'm saying it feels that way so instead you're able to kind of speak more clearly to the impact you're having with the business work on some other engineering angles that pure prototyping doesn't give you so I like that um again I don't know the person and what they're after but like if I were in that situ a as a developer I think that's what I would do because I was kind of in that situation but I I wanted to take the management route um you know that's my story right is like I was managing and developing at the same time and truly at the end of the day I wanted to spend more of my time managing so yeah I think that's the recommendation I would have but uh you know if they want wanted my opinion for what I would do in that

situation for myself but uh ultimately like I said we all have to answer these types of questions um for how we would like to grow so that's why I said the takeaway that I want you from the you to have from this video is when you ask questions like this I hope that it's to collect data points and perspective and not that you're just having people try to vote on the path that you take forward because you know you might hear a perspective and it's not the popular vote but you're like that actually aligns with what I would like to do so think about how you'd like your career to progress think about your work life balance um it's very interesting that as I talk through this uh I'm actually going to be wrapping up a course that talks about some of these things in

terms of how you navigate it it it's like it's not the core part of the course but uh at least core part of the things I'm responsible for in the course but I do think that you need to think about what you want out of your career and what you want out of like sort of your your life outside of your career how do you plan to balance those things this person probably thinks I'm crazy blocking the road but I got to back into my driveway so yeah I think that's it folks I'm just pulling in um if you have questions you want to answer ask him in the comments otherwise find Dev leader on social media and I'm happy to answer your questions if you send me a message till next time take care