A few weeks ago, a friend at work asked me what I want to be when I grow up (yes, we're both adults). I've been in the industry for 4 years and have been reasonably successful. But this time that question really got me thinking... What do I want to be 5, 10, 20 years down the road? What's my path to get there? What do I need to do now to put me on that path?
As a software engineer, it's relatively easy to get by without much of a plan or an end game. There are more jobs than we can possibly fill and more exciting projects than you can shake a stick at. If something's not working out, you can find a new job pretty easily. But isn't a plan valuable even with the plethora of opportunities before us?
As I've been reflecting on this, I've grown curious what other software engineers' career plans are. So, what's your career plan? What are your short and long term goals? Why do you want to do what you want to do? What advice do you have for others as they look ahead and wrestle with their dreams?
Oldest comments (39)
I love those questions! Talking to another adult about that is so refreshing and more realistic. I wanted to be a vet until I learned (age 10) I had to deal with dead animals as well. Now, age 25, I want to work within cybersecurity, but in the private sector. The chances of doing more and without restrictions are vast compared to the police (in their digital forensics area). That would be my long term goal. For short goal, I want to learn more programming. Like really good. That is why I joined this community!
I have pretty much committed to the #entrepreneur4life path, so my career goals revolve around extracting the good parts of that. I want to make an impact in my field without losing touch with the typical path. I want to gain more freedom as I grow. I want to be able to commit with all I have to the projects I care about without becoming a workaholic.
A couple years ago I almost took a well-paying job at a big tech company. I almost took it, but I'm happy I did not. My short term goal is growing dev.to to reach its full potential, and my long term goal is to parlay any successes into opportunities to continue to earn the freedom to do the work I am most passionate about.
My advice for everyone is to think long term and just focus on learning and bettering yourself. Don't jump from thing to thing, but don't stick around in a crappy situation. Go with the flow and find ways to reflect on the progress you've made as a software developer and imagine how much more capable you will be with a few more years of progress. But it's not a race. Take vacations and have as much fun as you can along the way!
Love the path, love the tips.
I've spent quite a good chunk of career in corporate marketing and dev. I've worked for a couple of successful startups and I always have the entrepreneurial bug. I've recently changed from full time to part time working from home, to free up more time for learning and coding. Ultimately I'd like to have a SaaS app that can be monetized...nothing pie in the sky, just something that can provide a reasonable income and some flexibility.
I love what you're doing with dev.to -- keep it up! :-)
Thinking about this early on is a great way to keep good perspective, especially if you're new to it (like I am!) and still learning what's even possible. My career plan is still pretty vague at the moment, besides knowing that I want the freedom of working with organizations/companies that I like. I want to contribute in ways that are meaningful, I don't want to just make better money. My advice is to be true to yourself and stay authentic to whatever you want to be and do.
I like what you say about contributing in meaningful ways - I feel the same. I fell in love with the web about 20 years ago, it fascinated me how it can bring together the most obscure of communities for discussion but also support. There are a lot of people in our world who are desperate for support in their lives and I feel it my longterm duty to bring people closer together, support each other and try make the world a nicer place.
When I grow up, I'd like to be a data scientist. I find it helpful to frame my ambitions within the ole saying about data scientists: "someone who is better at statistics than any software engineer and better at software engineering than any statistician."
I'm going back to grad school for the statistics half of that statement, so I'm mostly set on that front, but I'll have to be more self-reliant in my off-time to achieve the engineering aspect. That likely means MOOCs, personal projects, and a whole lot of Stack Overflow.
It's helped so far to stay focused on one thing at a time and not get too distracted by the big picture. Learning to code is intimidating enough by itself, but there's the added pressure to do everything extremely fast that comes from all those instant success stories that you hear so much about, at least from an outsider's perspective. Taking a minute to breath and focus on one book, one class, one idea at a time has been key to actually getting anything done.
As an example, I recently tried to do three things at once: read Eloquent Javascript, take an Intro to Databases online course, and start putting together an experimental website (going so far as to buy the domain name). But then I'd get home and worry so much about what to do that I'd do nothing at all, or do a little bit of all three and make no real progress. So I've put two of the things on hold for now. 😛
Great thoughts. Great lesson on limiting WIP. Keep it up! Good luck with your goals!
I have always been looking for a way to help marginalized groups but it never occurred to me that I could use software to help me do this. My optimal position would be me spending time looking at solutions that could help POC, LGBTQ and any other marginalized groups that face challenges. I do also want to learn in the process, I do like programming and the satisfaction it gives me. Building software to help under represented groups would allow me to help towards a solution as well as help me hone my skills as a developer.
Short term (5 years-ish) I want to go back to school and get my PhD. I can't decide between a PhD in Computer Science with research in Security and a PhD in Technology and Public Policy. I really want to go into politics and drive policy around cyber security. I'd like to protect the right to strong encryption, but also smaller things. For example, I really think it should be illegal for companies to falsely claim secure practices in advertisements (see: nomx).
Long term, I'd like to be a college professor. I've always really liked teaching and I want to go mold minds at the collegiate level (I tell people it's because you don't have to deal with students' parents in college). I think my heart will always lie in academia so I know that no matter what (if I don't end up in policy and stay in the private sector) I'll end up in a classroom.
Eek! This question makes me so nervous! My #shecoded post goes into my professional background a bit, so I won't rehash here, but I'm just now figuring out my next step. I've taken a great job at a large startup, but I'm not programming in my day job. I thought I could commit to OS in my free time. That hasn't happened. I keep asking myself, "What are you going to do about it?" Anyone care to share an answer that I can take as my own? :D
Not sure what this will look like yet, but I'm keeping my options open. In the short term, I'm staying involved. I want to use my skills, so perhaps teaching a Girl Develop It class?
Long term - I want to encourage others to take a chance on their dreams (channeling my idealistic college-self here) and overcome the barriers and bias that stand in the way of them getting there.
I have been contemplating this for the longest time as well and I still feel like I have no definitive answers. But as of right now my career plan is to stay behind the computer and build products that people find useful.
Short term goals is to stay within corporate life enhance my programming and business/social skills. Long term goals would be to break away from corporate life and try to become an entrepreneur. I want to build and distribute my own products because I feel like i can deliver more value to people/community I care for rather than forced to mindlessly debug and build for corporate.
Advice: this industry is huge and amazing so the one way to establish your career goals is to take advantage of the trial and error opportunity. If you have no idea what you want you want to do branch out and see what drives you and what doesn't.
I don't really know! I JUST became a developer (well 3 years in) so I still feel like 'learning to code' is the biggest thing on my plate right now. I would LOVE to be the lead engineer on a project where I get do do some code/technical work and some people work. Internal facing only tho - I am done with client facing stuff for the moment. That or build beautiful front end story experiences for journalists :)
I always feel a bit nervous saying this but... I've never made plans. I was always the kid at school that when I was asked "What do you want to be when you're older?" I had no answer. My direction has always been dictated by what I enjoy or how I can be of help to other people, which is why my CV reads: Software Dev, Digital Marketing, BMX Coach and Commentator! Loving Maths, Computers and helping people has kind of driven me to that point. And the variety keeps it interesting. If I had one piece of advice, I'd say always try things out despite any preconceived ideas you have about that thing. You might surprise yourself! :)
I've felt that way a lot in my life. I feel like I'm college it was a lot easier to have a plan, but out in the real world it gets a lot less directed and a lot more... Limitless. Which I think makes it harder to figure out what to do. Thanks for sharing!
Hoping to contribute to dev tools over the next few months and start committing code to some libraries. Ultimately I want to have my own SAAS company
I have a grand plan to create a programming language, Leaf. Slowly but surely I'll get there. In the meantime I'll just keeping working on cool things and writing my blog.
For the other dreamers? Do lots of coding and lots of different projects. You need to find your dream before you can pursue it.
early retirement when I'm tired of doing cool things
or at least a lengthy sabbatical, followed by probably a complete industry change. maybe teaching high school.
So my old response to this has always been "to be better than I was last week", and this is always going to be a goal for me. But over the past couple of years I've come to really take notice of the fact that a great deal of difficulty in software engineering is rooted in people having to read code that they are unfamiliar with; either because they didn't write it, or because they haven't looked at it for a while.
My goal, at least right now, is to at the very least, influence people to think about simplicity for their future colleagues, or their future selves. Write that nested loop if you must in order to get to a working solution, but then go back and re-write it in a way that future colleagues will thank you for, once you understand the logic. That sort of thing.
In terms of goals in terms of career etc., I have never been especially ambitious in that area. As long as I'm happy day to day, that's all I need. And I'm fortunate enough to work for a company that contributes toward that factor, rather than taking away from it.
I love this discussion!
I honestly want to start creating work that I have dreamed about for years. I love working on products as my full-time job but I'd like to build my own product, too. I have a few things going and I can't wait to see it pan out.
Everything is ambitious and I think that's what keeps me going. The other thing that keeps me is seeing people succeed with ideas similar to mine. I wanted to build a Dev-only medium-like site but never committed to it and (wrongly) believed that developers like having their own blogging silos and then check this site out. It's like a dream come true for a developer and for someone who wanted to build a similar product, it's validation that my ideas aren't terrible.
Outside of that, I want to do a ton of game development. I've found it incredibly difficult to get into that space but slowly and surely, I'm making progress. Maybe a decade from now, I'll release a game that I'm really proud of.
As for my advice: I've found it incredibly motivating to use my programming skills to support my other interests. I love writing. I've written 5+ books. But I hate UX of most writing editors which lead to me writing a novel in my own markdown/electron app.