The URI! Career Triangle

I give an annual presentation to a fresh cohort of my company's Technical Leadership Development Program, describing my unusual career path from software engineer to word wizard over the past 20 years. This article is an excerpt from that presentation, capturing the key questions I asked myself whenever I reached a point in my career where I could pivot or progress.

My career has zigged and zagged over the past twenty years, starting in an overly optimistic grad school berth as a music composer, through many joyful years as a software engineer, to my current role where I write more in English than in Python. Each time I took on new responsibilities or considered a lateral move, I had a framework in place to make career decisions. It's not something I consciously realized back then -- just something I reverse engineered after the fact. If you're early in your career, my framework might help you consider your way forward with more objectivity and consistency.

Each time I reached a point in my career where I could potentially do something different, I asked myself three questions, related to Competence, Satisfaction, and Salary.

Competence: Can I get good enough at this to stay marketable?

You need to have the potential to learn and excel at your job. Competence will give you peace of mind and the ability to look ahead instead of treading water fearfully. For example, you don't want to be a Machine Learning specialist if your linear algebra skills are super weak.

The demand for your role and the available talent pool will influence the answer to this question. If there's a very low demand for your job (in my case, academic professor of music composition) or a low barrier for entry (enterprise Java maintenance developer), you will spend more time fighting for your position than growing in it.

Satisfaction: Can I do this every day and not hate it?

Satisfaction affects your mental well-being. You really need to be able to come to work without dreading it. I've known people that squander the entire weekend dreading the approaching Monday rather than recognize that something about their job is unhealthy. Satisfaction can be intrinsic (Do I like what I'm doing?) or extrinsic (Am I changing the world by doing this?) and different people will need a different balance in each category.

I've found that a huge proportion of my job satisfaction comes from surrounding myself with good people. One of my key maxims would be to never join a company just for its reputation. A company is just the people that happen to be working there at the time and it's the luck of the draw if you end up working alongside the people that will make you excited to come in. Instead of fighting to get into the next Google or Facebook, seek out the best people wherever you are and latch onto them like a barnacle.

Salary: Will this support the lifestyle I want?

Clearly, this question is less important in tech compared to music, but the ground truth is that we all work for a wage that enables us to live the life we want. In spite of many motivational coffee mugs, "doing what you love" will only make you hate it. Monetizing passion is a lost cause for everyone but the exceptionally talented. My second maxim would be: Instead of doing what you love, do what you're good at and use the money to ENJOY what you love once you've gone home for the day.

When you consider salary, remember that there's always a minimum point under which you can't survive, due to our high cost of living. However (in government tech), there IS an upper limit where having more money is just nice to have -- this is the point whether you can objectively consider whether you'd rather be locked in a secure facility all day for plenty of cash, or you'd rather earn a little less and surf Reddit all day long. In my case, I found the perfect balance between hourly rate and hours worked so I can be present for my tiny kids and not burn out from overexposure to dry government proposals.

Interpreting the Results

So you've asked yourself these 3 questions and come up with answers. What's next?

In a perfect world, you would have 3 emphatic YES answers and you would definitely take the new role. You probably want to pass on the role if you have any hard NO answers (unless you have extenuating circumstances like unemployment) -- there will always be more opportunities in the future.

Realistically, you'll have a mix of YES and MAYBE answers. This is the point where you consider those responses and figure out if the strength of the YES answers outweighs the uncertainty of the MAYBE answers. Is it okay if the role is a little less fulfilling as long as the salary is high? Do you love the job so much that you're willing to earn less? Are you worried about how you compare to other candidates but expect your satisfaction and salary to be worth the stress? Figure out where you sit in the triangle and make your decision.

What if I choose poorly?

Regardless of what you decide, you will be okay! There is no such thing as a career mistake, which brings me to my final maxim: Career choices are just like dating. Just as every relationship helps you understand what you need and want in a partner, each new role you take will help you define your realistic, sustainable career. You may end up with the occasional job nightmare and that's okay. Each negative path will emphatically lock down a potential "what if" until you have arrived at a role you love and excel in.

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