I like your honesty about "working really hard" to navigate the different senior levels quickly.
In my experience, promoting to midsenior is not so hard. The real deal is going up the ladder after midsenior. It requires extensive work to do that. And, that fact is less spoken about.
How did you find moving from the level after midsenior to the other seniority levels? and how did you chose which direction to go? -- for instance I am in a place where I am still confused about should I continue as a Tech lead or IC or something else (more free)...
And you're absolutely right. Every company has "terminal" level, until you're there, your career growth is somehow owned by your leader. Beyond that is a choice. This line is often drawn around that "mid-senior" layer.
I'll add my 2-cents to your question from two perspectives, one, as the individual who was making these choices, two, as a lead how I advice my teammates.
When I was making these choices, I was at a very low point in my personal life. I was looking for some challenging goals, motivation. Google is famous for slow promotion, due to their "sustained performance" requirement. Upon sharing my aspirations with my leader, we drew a detailed plan with objective milestones. My deciding moment was the focusing all my energy into something productive. While increasing my exposure, I found out that I can achieve way more when I build a team and I liked to work with people. That's when I was sure, I will choose that direction.
Now as a lead, I always ask this question, "what do you really want to do?" and "after a long day at work what makes you proud?". Some people talk about solving very hard technical problem, on the other hand some say unblocking others. Sometimes people are in the middle of these too. It's just start of a conversation, then I dig deeper into those aspirations.
Hope you got some context on my approach and I am happy to chat more on this topic, if you'd like.
I think starting generic on what you want and then going on the smaller parts of how to achieve it, can be a good strategy for people who don't exactly know what they want.
The blurred visions like "I want to help people," can lead to a more fine grained posts that can actually help you define your next role or level. I think a good manager plays a significant role here too!
This is a authentic write up. It's normal only why was warning you gave hehe . Whatever you said is true 💯 . There is no shortcut except going extramile .
Nice detailed post!
I like your honesty about "working really hard" to navigate the different senior levels quickly.
In my experience, promoting to midsenior is not so hard. The real deal is going up the ladder after midsenior. It requires extensive work to do that. And, that fact is less spoken about.
How did you find moving from the level after midsenior to the other seniority levels? and how did you chose which direction to go? -- for instance I am in a place where I am still confused about should I continue as a Tech lead or IC or something else (more free)...
First of all, thank you for your kind words.
And you're absolutely right. Every company has "terminal" level, until you're there, your career growth is somehow owned by your leader. Beyond that is a choice. This line is often drawn around that "mid-senior" layer.
I'll add my 2-cents to your question from two perspectives, one, as the individual who was making these choices, two, as a lead how I advice my teammates.
When I was making these choices, I was at a very low point in my personal life. I was looking for some challenging goals, motivation. Google is famous for slow promotion, due to their "sustained performance" requirement. Upon sharing my aspirations with my leader, we drew a detailed plan with objective milestones. My deciding moment was the focusing all my energy into something productive. While increasing my exposure, I found out that I can achieve way more when I build a team and I liked to work with people. That's when I was sure, I will choose that direction.
Now as a lead, I always ask this question, "what do you really want to do?" and "after a long day at work what makes you proud?". Some people talk about solving very hard technical problem, on the other hand some say unblocking others. Sometimes people are in the middle of these too. It's just start of a conversation, then I dig deeper into those aspirations.
Hope you got some context on my approach and I am happy to chat more on this topic, if you'd like.
I can relate, Akash.
I think starting generic on what you want and then going on the smaller parts of how to achieve it, can be a good strategy for people who don't exactly know what they want.
The blurred visions like "I want to help people," can lead to a more fine grained posts that can actually help you define your next role or level. I think a good manager plays a significant role here too!
This is a authentic write up. It's normal only why was warning you gave hehe . Whatever you said is true 💯 . There is no shortcut except going extramile .
Yes, but we tend to put the shiny part of accelerated promo out there, it's time to start talking about the hard parts.