"Whenever I made an achievement of note — shipping a new feature, refactoring old code, or handling an incident — I kept a record of it."
This is what I struggle with most. Anytime I do something, I don't really think of it as an "achievement". To me, It's just something that should be done, so nothing ever really sticks out to me the things I have accomplished. Perhaps I should start writing down literally everything I do, no matter how small it may seem.
Hi Daniel -
You are not alone in feeling that way. What helped me is asking myself, “what is the business impact of my work on this project?” “What new skills/knowledge does this project help me develop?” It can be a technical skill, such as putting what you learned from the Clean Code book to refactor the code. Or it can be a non-technical skill, such as working with stakeholders to define the system requirements instead of being told what to do.
It may also be helpful to talk with more senior developers and ask them what they think separates more senior developers from your currently level (like this helpful post by Sun-Li 😉) and use that information to identify/map the skills/knowledge you gain from your work.
In the end, you not only have built a portfolio for your next promotion, but more importantly, you have a record to show how much you have grown professionally, which I find intrinsically rewarding. Totally agree with Sun-Li that growth and self-improvement are the real goal here. Thanks for an excellent post!
Yeah I had the same feeling that everything I was doing wasn't really "notable". But it oftentimes doesn't look that way to other people. Consistently completing your tasks and shipping new features and functionality is an achievement in itself.
Also, taking time to write down the things I had done helped me remember everything I had actually done. When I was talking with my manager about the different things I had worked on, he actually remembered some stuff that I didn't.
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Amazing!
"Whenever I made an achievement of note — shipping a new feature, refactoring old code, or handling an incident — I kept a record of it."
This is what I struggle with most. Anytime I do something, I don't really think of it as an "achievement". To me, It's just something that should be done, so nothing ever really sticks out to me the things I have accomplished. Perhaps I should start writing down literally everything I do, no matter how small it may seem.
Hi Daniel -
You are not alone in feeling that way. What helped me is asking myself, “what is the business impact of my work on this project?” “What new skills/knowledge does this project help me develop?” It can be a technical skill, such as putting what you learned from the Clean Code book to refactor the code. Or it can be a non-technical skill, such as working with stakeholders to define the system requirements instead of being told what to do.
It may also be helpful to talk with more senior developers and ask them what they think separates more senior developers from your currently level (like this helpful post by Sun-Li 😉) and use that information to identify/map the skills/knowledge you gain from your work.
In the end, you not only have built a portfolio for your next promotion, but more importantly, you have a record to show how much you have grown professionally, which I find intrinsically rewarding. Totally agree with Sun-Li that growth and self-improvement are the real goal here. Thanks for an excellent post!
Yeah I had the same feeling that everything I was doing wasn't really "notable". But it oftentimes doesn't look that way to other people. Consistently completing your tasks and shipping new features and functionality is an achievement in itself.
Also, taking time to write down the things I had done helped me remember everything I had actually done. When I was talking with my manager about the different things I had worked on, he actually remembered some stuff that I didn't.