Career Growth

Career growth & aspiration is an often overlooked aspect in workplaces. Not until it is too late, we come to the realisation that our growth in not happening at/in the desired pace or direction. I have made this mistake myself in my early years of professional career. In this article, I aim to share my thoughts and list a few frameworks that could help you. In no way do I claim that I have come up with them - they are cumulative lessons learned over ~9 years of industry experience.

Why should you trust anything I say? - I entered Amazon as an SDET-1 in 2013, transitioned to SDE-1 in 2014, grew to SDE-II in 2017, became SDE-lead in 2018, SDM-II in 2018 and SDM-III in 2019. I have conducted several career discussion sessions and talks for large orgs, led multiple Amazon SDM cohorts, been an Amazon Bar Raiser and Amazon Retail Call Leader.

It's critical to understand a few things:

1. Ownership - You, and only you OWN your career growth (my article will heavily focus on this).
2. Guidance - Your managers/leaders/mentors are agents and supporters
3. Support - You need people to champion/support you.

Let's dive deeper into each of the aspects.

Ownership

You are responsible for taking the initiative for your career growth. What this means is you need to actively carve out time for understanding where you are today, where you see yourself in X months/years and how you aim to accomplish that. There are multiple ways to do this, but a few things have worked out great for me personally.

1. Understanding yourself via a Strengths/Motivation matrix framework. This activity will help you set a longer term vision. This is a 2x2 matrix. On the X-axis, you have Strengths (S) and Weaknesses (W). On the Y-axis, you have Motivated By (M) and Drained By (D). So, once you sit back, think and fill it up honestly & critically, you will have 4 boxes - SM, SD, WM, WD. 1) You have the maximum likelihood of success with things you filled up in SM - leverage that. 2) SD are the things that you have an expertise in but you have done them more than enough times, or just don't enjoy it anymore. So, this is a great opportunity to teach, educate, or automate. 3) WM is the most tricky of them all. As human nature goes, we all have things we get excited by, but at the same time not good at. IT HURTS! You have 2 choices here - either spend time strengthening the skill or accept that it's okay to not know it. Personally, I believe that things here will give you a kick, but don't bank on them in short term. 4) WD is a no-brainer. You need to lay off everything in this area ASAP. If this is a core demand/competency of what you are doing, take a step back and think if you are in the right job/organisation.
2. Evaluate yourself with job roles/guidelines - Now that you have understood yourself, most likely you know where to head. If the answer is you want to continue with what you are doing for at least a couple of years, you need to sit down and evaluate yourself with respect to current and target role. Any established organisation will have such a role document - ask your manager/HR for this. If it does not exist, take the time to discuss and get a rough mind map. Now, we are going to use the RYG (Red, Yellow, Green) framework. Remember, you need to be brutally critical and truthful with yourself here. Let's say you are at L1 and aiming for L2. Let's say both have roughly 10 yardsticks/measurements. First, you need to mark R/Y/G for each measurement in L1. Gs are good, for Ys you have some work to go, Rs are things you haven't done at all or didn't even know existed - YES, that happens! For any rating, you need to have the data points to justify them. Repeat the same for L2. Excel/spreadsheet is usually the easiest way to do this.
3. Schedule the initial discussion with your manager - You own setting up a career discussion meeting with your manager. While you go into the meeting, go with an open mind and be up for debate/discussion, as your manager may disagree on a few things/ratings. Trust your manager - seek guidance and advice. Discuss timelines. Don't come out of the meeting without action items - both for you and your manager. Within 15 minutes of exiting the meeting, schedule the next instance with notes and action items from current meeting. I preferred to have this discussion at least once per quarter with my manager. Keep delivering your action items, and following up with your manager on theirs. Hopefully, your sheet in step#2 will keep getting better in subsequent discussions. Have patience and perseverance.

Guidance

It's easy to be a lone wolf, trying to accomplish all by yourself. Makes sense - after all, everyone has so much to do. It's easy to not think about getting a mentorship at all. But trust me, having a mentor goes a long way, and gives you fresh perspectives. Find someone you look forward to and would like to be your mentor. Reach out to them - express your intent to be mentored. Request for a 1-time meeting - go into that meeting with your expectations from mentorship and what success looks like. Express that you consider these discussions to be a safe space and keep the things confidential. If you both agree, great. Else, rinse/repeat with someone else. For all of the reasons above, my mentors were never in the direct line of my manager's/skip manager's reporting chain. Seek help from your peers/managers to get a mentor. Needless to say, that you need to set a cadence for discussions with mentors as well. It's also important to remember that mentorship comes in various ways - every interaction you have, every mail you read, every reply you get. Keep learning and seeking help.

Support

Lastly, you will need someone to champion you in front of your management/leadership/partners/stakeholders. If your work is stellar, this will come by default. However, you should have a face time with senior leaders in your org. This helps them put a face to the name, and get to know what you have been doing. More often than not, a lot of great ideas come from such discussions. I used to meet with most of the senior leaders in my org once a month, and my director at least once a quarter.

Lastly, I know that I have not touched a lot of aspects in this article. But, I don't want to overload you. Please feel free to give your thoughts/inputs on this. And, let me know if you would want me to go deeper into any of the above, or talk about any specific topic. I am always up for helping and having a discussion. So, feel free to DM me on LinkedIn as well.