Career Success: 5 Tips on How To Take It To The Next Level (with resources)

Cover image by Rachel McDermott

Highlight

Here are some of the tips I wish I knew earlier.

Many of these things I still use and apply.

Here are the tips:

1. Learning how to learn - Figure out your style

2. Self Advocacy - Do a great job, then tell others about it

3. Negotiating compensation - It’s difficult but try to always negotiate

4. Going beyond your bubble - See, and think beyond just what you are doing right now

5. Gain clarity - Know where you are going

Let’s go through them in more details 👇

Learning how to learn

Photo by Tim Mossholder

If there is one thing that is common for ALL people working in the tech industry, its this — You are learning ALL the time.

If that is the case, you should try to figure out how you learn.

• Do I learn best reading, writing, through diagrams/images or watching videos ?

• What are ways I can myself on track ? and motivated to learn ?

• How do I design my learning so I find the balance between being over challenged or under challenged ?

• How do I track my learning ? (Hint: Use Notion or Trello)

💡 Tip:

The goal should be to get to a point where you can systemize your learning and make this into a process.

That way, the more you improve this process, the better you learn.

Resources:

• Programmer’s pyramid By Amy Haddad
• Motivation: The Scientific Guide on How to Get and Stay Motivated

Prioritization

Learn how to prioritize your task.

Even better, learn how to prioritize it for impact.

💡 Tip:

What does impact mean ?

Impact to me means how can I get the most value with what I am working with, and with the time I can put in.

Don’t come up with 5 or 10 or 20 items. Come up with one thing.

Once you do that, just do that one thing.

Every week or month, try to slot your tasks into the “Eisenhower Matrix or Box”.

Reflect and review the tasks in each category.

Then set goals to move towards “Important” tasks.

This is a continual process.

Resources:

• How to be More Productive and Eliminate Time Wasting Activities by Using the “Eisenhower Box” - James Clear
• The ultimate productivity tool - Sahil Bloom

Self Advocacy

Unfortunately, it’s not enough to do a great job or work.

Beyond just doing the work, you must also advocate for yourself.

Tell people about what you did, and how it adds value.

Communicate the value of the work, and value you bring to the table.

💡 Tip:

It doesn’t have to be shameless or “slimey”, if you actually did the work, and delivered on it then don’t be afraid to talk about it.

Resources:

• Career Advancement Tip - Shaundai Person
• Brag Document - Julia Evans

Negotiating compensation

Let’s be honest... no one teaches this.

There is no class for this.

Would this help your career ? Yes, you bet it would.

A lot of people like to tell you: “we have a salary range here”.

That’s just code name for we want to pay you the minimum amount.

Get paid for what your worth.

Here are some resources:

• Salary Negotiation thread by Moe
• Salary Negotiation thread by Sriram Krishnan

Going beyond your bubble

Most people like to say — learn a new programming language or a new framework every year.

This is great but you have to realize the goal of a developer or programmer is not to code.

The goal is to provide value through your work, and sometimes it does include coding.

Try to read up on how the software you build adds value or provide value to the end-user.

Do you work on a marketing site that sells shoes ? or plant fertilizer ?

• Read a little bit about marketing, conversions or analytics
• Read a little bit about the shoes & the plant fertilizer
• Ask someone from another team questions about these things
• Read some reviews online, and see what people are talking about

Don’t just be a “coder”, be a problem solver, no matter the problem, solve it.

Resources:

• 12 things your manager may not be telling you - Louie Bacaj

Gain clarity

Photo by Evgeni Tcherkasski

If you ask most people where do you want to be in 5 years ? in 10 years ?

Guess what is the most common answer ? I don’t know or I am not sure.

”If you don't know where you want to go, then it doesn't matter which path you take.” - Lewis Carroll

Gaining clarity allows you to move in the direction you want to go.

In the future, do you want to work as data scientist ? frontend ? backend ? graphic design ? content creator ? or whatever else

The thing is you won’t know exactly where you want to go but you should have a vague idea of where you want to go.

It’s better than not knowing at all.

Just know that this direction will change and evolve as you start moving towards it, and that’s ok.

Being in motion is better than standing still in a fast moving world.

Move towards a direction that opens up future optionality.

Conclusion

That’s it!

If you found this helpful, please help someone else by sharing it or tagging someone in the comments!

Thanks! ❤️🙏