I Don't Want To Chase Promotions As A Software Engineer

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all right it is end of day Monday which I'm in this funny situation like last time where I have not a lot of time to get home to get on this live stream so we'll see if I can do it again it says I will make it with 5 minutes to spare which is actually an improvement from last time which is cool um although last time on my Dev leader live stream what happened was that um restream iio actually had a bunch of issues I made it on time and then restream wouldn't connect to like three different platforms I was really pissed off but I got a topic I went to Reddit because I had a couple that were submitted um that I responded to earlier today which is great I'm really happy that people are you know taking advantage of asking questions sending them

sending them into to me that's it feels cool um and it sounds like they're getting value out of it so uh I definitely appreciate that so reminder if you want your questions answer leave them in the comments look for Dev leader on social media or Nick centino on LinkedIn and I'm happy to try and help but this one I think this is an interesting one um and it feels I I feel like it's interesting because it kind of feels counter to what a lot of people talk about and this person said and I'm going to try to answer their question maybe a slightly different way but what they're asking is how do I communicate to companies and recruiters that like I don't want to like aspire to climb the corporate ladder like I don't want to be a CTO I don't want to manage uh

engineering departments and and things like that like I don't have aspirations to do that and I didn't go through the whole their whole post cuz I was uh admittedly in a little bit of a rush here to get on the road but I think the the idea is still still good to talk through so I don't know their specific situation um what they actually want so they're saying I don't want to be running an organization I don't want to be a CTO but I don't know where they kind of Drew the line for themselves um so I think that's cool I think that people don't talk about this a lot and everything that we see in social media and probably that people talk about in general for this kind of stuff is like how do you like how do you max out right how do

you get to max level as a software engineer and like it's it's all just like Pinnacle of everything and how do you get there as fast as possible most efficiently um and for a lot of people that's not not their interest got to move over some Lanes here okay that's enough of that I had people in front of me that were if you're new here if you're new here let me tell you about how highways work if you're merging onto a highway and you're on the on-ramp and you are not trying to meet the speed of traffic when you're merging in you're going to have a shitty time so the goal when you're on a ramp getting onto the highway is that you want to get up to speed before you are actually trying to merge because if you're not when you try to merge

you're going to feel like hey I can't get in anywhere and if I'm behind you and that's happening I also can't get in anywhere so what I will do is make sure that you are not blocking me and if I can legally I will try to get away from you as fast as I can legally that way I'm not going to get stuck behind you that's what just happened so a lot of people don't talk about this idea that maybe I don't want to be you know trying to be living this life where I'm constantly looking for the next step up constantly chasing promotions constantly doing whatever um because that's not of interest to them right like we don't talk about this stuff a lot because maybe it doesn't sound like sexy I don't know if you can even have anything software engineering that sounds

sexy so that might be a weird statement but I hope you get what I mean right like people are interested in maximizing how do I make the most money how do I have the most success but a lot of the time that's centered around like your your career and how how far you reach in your career and like maybe it just doesn't need to look like that um I can't remember who I was interviewing on on my podcast unfortunately um it's escaping me right now but this conversation came up um so for those of you that don't know I live in the United States I'm in the Seattle area and so a lot of what I talk about is Centric to either Canada or the United States um and I was talking with someone I'm trying to remember if they were if they were in

India or if they were in somewhere in Europe and so I apologize so I can't I can't recall I think it was in India but anyway somewhere that was not North America it it doesn't really matter for this I just wanted to say that there are I was shocked to kind of hear this but it was more common in this person's culture they were saying that like there are situations where people will get promoted or like an offer to be promoted and they like turn it down they're like no thank you like I'm content at this level thanks but no thanks don't e it I don't want the added responsibility and I was like holy like that that seems crazy right someone's like hey good job here's more money here's more responsibility and you're like nah um and it's just I think it's because it

feels feels very backwards from a lot of the things that we look at jeez people are driving me nuts today um so I don't think people talk about this a lot but I think that it's actually like realistically it's probably more common than people realize right like not not every single person is actually going to be chasing like how do I how do I reach the peak of of the corporate ladder or you know how do I run my own startup we talk about these things a lot more I think because there's an Allure to them right like they seem interesting they seem attractive um but like that's just not the common thing so the reason I didn't want to answer this person's question the way it was kind of written in the title is like they're they're asking how do I tell recruiters and

companies this and I think the answer is that I wouldn't I wouldn't go out of my way to to tell a recruiter or a company hello my name is Nick and I'm interested in a job working for you but I don't actually want to demonstrate the qualities that you're probably going to expect in terms of someone trying to grow in level so the the way or the reason I'm saying this is that I think to advertise it it's not that it's wrong that you don't want to like be kind of trying to constantly push the limits and whatever because the video I made this morning I was talking about coasting I don't think that it means that you're necessarily coasting by not wanting to like climb the corporate ranks I don't think that it's coasting okay but when you go to advertise it I think

it's really difficult to not sound like hi I'm Nick and I just want to Coast like it's it's not what you're intending to say but I personally don't know how you would positively convey your goal without making it sound that way so I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't think that you need to advertise that and I'm thinking about interviews that I've done where we were hiring software Engineers I don't recall one where I was like oh man like this person kept saying how eager they were to climb levels and stuff and that's what sold me on them so like not not mentioning it in the first place I don't think is like a strike against you I think that's it's fine whatever um so I I guess what I'm trying to get at here is I think their question is interesting

because it's just not something that I would bring up in an interview in the first place and I don't think you need to um and omitting it is not a problem but I do think that it's actually important for people to think through and talk about because not everyone is is hyperfocused on next level next promotion next next next um so I hadn't fully thought through what I wanted to say for this topic but uh I I felt like it was important to kind of start getting the ball rolling to talk about it um I would say you can tell this is definitely like stream of Consciousness stuff going on but I I would I'm trying to think about like for myself like um at different points in my career that that motivation has changed for me right like and it's looked different too so

I've talked about this publicly before but like when I was an intern uh like my work ethic was very different uh I was interested in doing basically uh uh the the minimum I had to like not so much that I was like cutting corners or anything like that but you know 9:00 I'll be at the office 5:00 I'm leaving like that's it like I'm an I'm an intern this work is cool I'm going to do a good job on my work I never felt like I was um you know writing sloppy crappy code or rushing stuff or whatever like I'm going to do a good job on this but that's all I'm going to do this person's trying to fly past me go ahead don't know where you think you're going but that lane ends so good luck very weird um so my internship experiences

were very much like I'm just not I'm not like a go-getter I'm going to I'm going to do good work and then I'm going to leave and it's kind of weird because when I reflect on like how my career and my perspectives changed like I I feel like I could have done I could have been so much more effective as an intern um I think that I was pretty fortunate and that like I'm a pretty strong programmer and that carried me but honestly like I don't know like I feel like maybe as like a as an employee like I wasn't I wasn't great and that's like that's hard to admit because that's it's just not how my perspective is today when I think about and this is I'm not telling you that you have to think about this right I'm trying to give you different

perspective because this individual was basically saying like I don't have interest in climbing corporate rank now for me I actually do not necessarily like hey I want to be CEO of Microsoft but I am very motivated by having more responsibility by having larger opportunity for impact like that is very exciting for me doesn't mean that I'm right and that other person's wrong these are just different perspectives so the part that I'm trying to illustrate here is that even for myself when I was a little bit younger man I guess I am old now um but yeah when I was younger like as an intern I was like I just don't care and then there was this interesting thing that happened when I was working at Magnet forensics before Microsoft the um I don't think that at that point I don't think I was like oh

man like I can't wait to like you know become a manager then become a director then become a VP like it didn't matter I think I was so so motivated that I had good leadership that had a lot of respect for me and had a lot of trust in me that that enabled me to be very autonomous and I I honestly felt like I was able to put in a lot of effort and have a lot of positive results so it was like it was really motivating for me so the weird part about all of that is like it it transformed how I worked but I still wasn't thinking about like oh I I want to be a VP oh I want like I want that CTO title um like just not the case at all but here's the weird thing like going to Microsoft

now um what I find is like so at the startup we didn't really have levels just like we were trying to figure that out we don't actually know what we're doing um is this person trying to pass me and that Lane's going to end no they moved over good um so like we didn't like we had we had introduced like a senior band for individual contributors so you were either an engineer or senior engineer and then for managers it was like you were a manager or technical manager and then they had just introduced like a director but because I was a technical manager there was actually no path there was no there was no career path I I at the time that I left I could not become a director because there was no they literally didn't have a line in the career path that

went technical manager to director and I'm not like I'm not saying this like I'm shaking my fist at them I'm laughing at this because it's like I didn't I didn't even exist and it was kind of being discussed you know at the time that I departed so I find it Microsoft though and this is probably the case for many big tech companies there's so much motivation around levels right this this is a demonstration of your career progress It's very much to compensation and your responsibilities and for me like that's a much more tangible thing now when I didn't have levels and stuff before and I had a ton of autonomy I was like okay you keep letting me do good work I'm going to keep doing it and I will be compensated for it so I it's like a good feedback loop I'll just keep

doing that and at Microsoft what I find is interesting is that the um because the levels and stuff are so so much more like prominent and that's like a just a discussion that's always happening with people in terms of how they're progressing like that's kind of instilled in my brain now after a few years right I joined Microsoft as a principal level engineering manager I I didn't have this concept of like going up through uh you know software engineer sd2 then Senior then principal like that that just didn't exist for me but now I'm like okay well if I if I stay at Microsoft or I stay in big Tech the only way that I progress in my career in terms of having more responsibility more impact is to climb that ladder it's very interesting and because of like I was saying my my own

personal motivations to be doing more more have more responsibility of course I want to get paid more too it's very it feels very tangible with the leveling system so it's just kind of a interesting observation that how much that's changed for me um you know if I wasn't at Microsoft or a big tech company um I honestly don't know I feel like the only other sort of career option for me at this point is like starting a company that's probably like a long-term goal whether that's in retirement if I can call it that like if I don't if I didn't have to work for money and I could just do what I wanted like I would I would run a software company um because I could go pick whatever I want to go work on and try to like if I don't have employees it

doesn't matter um but like you know that's probably where I'd like to end up um because I think that if I think about what this person's saying with like I want to be com I think what they're saying is I want to be comfortable but they're and I'm kind of putting words into their mouth right I feel like their definition of comfortable here is like they're looking at their income going I'd be happy at this I don't need to go chase more money because if they're chasing more money they're like yeah more responsibilities more pressure more stress I don't care like I don't care for that so let me live at this at this level and that means sure maybe maybe promotions are coming slower perhaps right that's okay like I'm not I'm not chasing that I'm happy where I'm at and I think that

this is maybe a conversation more people should consider not because I think that they're not capable of going after those levels and stuff but I think more people need to talk about this stuff because the stuff we're being force fed online is like so much the other way and like I'm I'm guilty of talking about this stuff CU like that's you know what people bring up to me the questions I get asked the stuff that I think people are interested in so this just is very much the opposite direction and I thought that that would be worth it's not a stop sign keep going um I thought that would be interesting for people to maybe say hey wait like there are other people that you know aren't constantly trying to grind and do the next thing so I'm just a I'm a bad example of

of that because I'm I am very much the opposite like uh to a fault too like I love to work um I love building things I like feeling busy I like feeling productive so like I I'm a I'm not the right person for that uh but I also I hope that it doesn't come across this way like I am not suggesting to you that what I do for myself is like better or that you should do that uh I don't think of myself as being Superior for being that way I'm just like that's what motivates me and if that's not what motivates you or gets you excited then that's totally cool like it's not that it's wrong just how I think that what I'm doing is not wrong either like find what motivates you so in other news we beat the the Google time significantly

I'm almost home this might be one of the fastest drives home from work ever which is awesome because I got that live stream to do um so maybe a good reminder for folks because I'm getting towards a tail end of this um I do have a live stream on my main Dev leader channel it's been super cool that people from code commute are coming over to that channel and joining in for the live streams like I don't know maybe people that watch this channel don't care for the you know the edited tutorials and you know more polished conversations that's totally fine but um it is really cool that people from from code commuter joining into the live streams and joining in the chat and asking questions and stuff like that's why I do it um I mean those live streams were running on dev leader

well before I started code commute and honestly I started code commute because of this this stupid productivity thing in my head like I'm like I don't want to sit in the car and do nothing I would rather try to make something out of this time so I record myself talking right um but the topics that I'm going over these are all very much things that like I would be happy to talk about with you on the live streams so um I'm I'm plugging it because I want you to join that and have those conversations like I bring a topic which is going to be every week it's a newsletter topic I shouldn't say every week almost every week it's a newsletter topic and that way I have some material that I can go through right it's not just like oh no one showed up to

the live stream I guess there's nothing um I talk through a newsletter article and um as soon as people start asking questions though if that derails me completely from the newsletter article who cares it's all for the it's all for the chat it's way way more enjoyable for me I hope it's a better use of other people's time like they get more value out of it so um definitely check out Dev leader it's 7 p.m. Pacific on Mondays so if you're watching this you've already missed today's live stream because this will probably go up maybe Wednesday morning I got four videos done today as long as I check them and they're not busted um so we'll see but uh yeah try to join next week's if um if you want to know likely what the Topic's going to be uh the newsletter website is weekly.

deev leader.com it's uh it's just at that website so it gets posted there it gets archived after about a month and um that way if you always want to have them that's when you subscribe right otherwise don't worry about it yeah um I hope you thought that was kind of interesting I think it's a little bit of a different take and uh I think that it's important to let they talk about different perspectives right if you're not super motivated by you know constantly chasing how am I getting to the next level and like that sounds stressful and it's just not for you then like that's not weird that's not bad I just wouldn't go into a job application or an interview advertising it and the only reason I say that is because I don't know a good way to advertise that without making it sound

like you want to coast and I'll say it again I don't think that that means you're going to Coast I just don't know how else you say it so I don't think that you'll end up disappointing people you know if you it's all like you're misleading them by not telling them um because the reality is and I can say this as an engineering manager I have absolutely managed people that um it's very apparent they're like I'm good at this spot like they're content and that doesn't mean that I'm like oh man like Jimmy on the team doesn't doesn't do anything like Jimmy sucks he's just coasting like that's not even how I see it I'm like Jimmy does good work Jimmy Jimmy's totally content Jimmy goes he's got a family Jimmy's got other priorities too outside of work that's great because you're not going to

have a team that's fully like everyone's go go go go go you might have disproportionately more people like that perhaps but it doesn't mean that like it's bad to be the other ways so anyway hope that's helpful thanks for tuning in I'll see you next time