Your Career Development Focus

There are many ways to grow; in different phases of career, it’s smart to focus on different things. You can optimize for getting deep into a problem and like longevity, while sometimes you are broadening your skill set. Here are a few options, not all mutually exclusive.

• Depth — dig into a problem and develop mastery in a domain or a set of technologies. Here it makes sense to stay on the same team for a while, or to do similar work if on different teams.
• Breadth — expand your skillset. You can do that on the team by taking on new technologies or types of tasks, or by switching between teams with some regularity.
• Special Forces — some people like being thrown into new situations and operating under pressure. This can be either a depth or breadth play. This can be very valuable both to the person getting the experience as well as to your company.
• Menders — while the majority of developers like to work on new things, there are some that are menders — they truly enjoy refactoring and making code better.

I’ve done the first three at different points in my career. I once worked for a consulting company where they would throw me to build trust with new clients quickly. In about 24 months I’ve worked on 14 disparate projects. While I enjoyed it, it was probably just a bit too much. I also then co-founded a company, which is a breadth play — you have to do many different things to be successful. I’ve also focused on deepening my skillset at different times, trying to achieve mastery before taking on new learning challenges. Different roles also require different learning goals.

Speaking to Your Manager About Your Goals

At times you want to push for the next career milestone, on other occasions you want to achieve mastery at the current level. You may also have non-work life milestones you want to give your extra energy to.

Assuming you work in a company with healthy culture, you should regularly discuss with your manager your current goals and what you want to optimize for, so they can support you appropriately. The default assumption of your manager may very well that all people are explicitly pushing for the next level, so if you are for the time being are focused on some other aspects of your career, it’s valuable to align on those expectations.