I have a conversation with myself more than often about the next steps in my career. I like to assume this is a common thing to do, but very curious about how other people view and plan their next steps in their career.
What's the next steps in your developer career and how do you plan to get there?
Is it based on...
- a time frame?
- promotion?
- responsibilities?
- perks? (ie: working from home)
- skillset?
Curious to hear others perspectives!
Top comments (3)
Unlike many I do not really separate "career goals" from "life goals". Sure they are different but they are not independent from each other. My career is part of my life and my life and my life will certainly influence my career.
From a planning perspective I usually base thing on milestones and not on fixed-time windows. I think of a long-term big goal (ie: run my own custom software shop with all remote employees) then I start looking at the intermediate steps to get me there, all which so far have been based around skill-building.
I do 1,3,5,10 year plans. Then every year review and re-evaluate the goals. I tend to post them somewhere easy to read so I am constantly reminded what the goal is.
My current goal set is:
1 year
Pass both AWS pro certs.
3 year
Have all AWS certs
Have > 50% GCP certs
Have 2 more years hands-on experience
5 year
Be a team lead for Dev/Ops w/i an organization
10 year
Be able to work 100% remote, travel monthly, start seeing as much of the world as possible.
In my case, I don't usually have those conversations with myself since I decided where I want to go with my career around two months ago, but I'd say it's based in skillset, experience and perks.
To elaborate, I'm barely 6-months in the software industry as a QA/Automation Engineer, and I am nowhere near the level of experience and skills I'd like to have if I want a higher-paying job, working from home.
I found a nice remote QA company a few weeks ago, which has also a focus in candidates who know test automation, and I tried applying for it, but I don't think I've made it. Thankfully, it's not like I'm being fired from my current job either, therefore, I plan to stay where I am working and acquire experience for a year or two.
So my roadmap so far, is to get rid of University and earn my CS degree, and as soon as that happens, earn at least 2 ISTQB certifications to boost my resume, while adquiring experience and the skills that come with my current position at my job, and then apply again for the remote QA company.