Dimensions of Career Growth

Skills

Skill growth is a function engineer learning new skills and becoming an expert through practicing newly acquired abilities on real-world projects.

Skill growth stagnates when the project reaches a certain level of maturity and is either no longer growing or is in a terminal decline. Projects reach maturity when they reach a critical mass in production and are no longer rapidly evolving. When the active development phase is over, the projects are often scaled back. When projects don’t rapidly evolve, there is no room for the acquisition of new skills.

Another reason for skill growth stagnation is presence of SmartestPersonInTheRoom. SmartestPersonInTheRoom is either the developer themselves (which means they’ve outgrown the project and are now a toxic influence on it), or someone else (who created the conditions in which only his ideas are good).

Recognition

Recognition is a function of showing initiative, applying new skills, and being recognized by supportive leadership.

Recognition stagnates when either skills stagnate or the engineer loses the support of the leadership, including due to management incompetence. When leadership is unsupportive no new skills will earn recognition.

Compensation

Compensation is a function of recognition and skill growth.

When both skill growth and recognition stagnate, the compensation stagnates as well. Well-run companies reward engineers. Poorly run companies don’t have the money to reward them. Companies that create artificial limitations due to parochial title hierarchies run the risk of not rewarding technologists and losing them.

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