To grow their career, Bruno Rey suggests that software engineers should develop ambition, increase their capacity, and seek opportunities. He advises being proactive, broadening your influence by learning from peers, and stepping outside your comfort zone. Software engineers can keep a brag doc to ensure that their work is visible and plan their growth with realistic long-term goals.
Bruno Rey spoke about how software engineers can grow their careers at QCon San Francisco.
Rey mentioned three factors that drive the personal growth of software engineers: ambition, capacity, and opportunity. Ambition for him means understanding that making an extra effort to become a better version of ourselves will pay off. Capacity is the ability to perform the tasks that are expected of an employee one level above you, or at the very least, the ability to learn it quickly. But even a perfect employee can find difficulties in climbing the ladder if they don’t find a good opportunity, Rey said.
As an individual, if you’re having trouble maintaining ambition consistently, the underlying factor might be a lack of motivation, and you should evaluate why you’re going through that, Rey suggested.
Employers and mentors should look for signs of ambition during recruiting. If you have someone working at the company who is a good worker but fails to show ambition, try to make an extra effort to explain the benefits and maybe make them see examples in real life, Rey said.
Rey suggested that software engineers have to take agency to grow personally:
Some people prefer the approach of victim-player, some call it “high-agency”, others use the term “proactive”; they’re all similar. This was made very popular with the famous “7 habits…” book by Covey, with “be proactive” being the very first habit.
We all have an area of influence, Rey said. There are things we can change and things we can’t. What happens in most cases is that engineers think that their area of influence is smaller than it actually is, and move around in the small subsection of their comfort zone:
If you’re willing to take a few uncomfortable steps, you can probably start broadening your influence by a lot. You may take a few false steps as part of this process, but if done in good spirit and with judgment, any healthy work environment should forgive those.
To broaden their influence, software engineers can talk to their manager or to a superior peer, Rey suggested. See what they do and how they operate. Try to take some tasks off their plate and do them yourself. If you don’t know how to do it, train that muscle and learn, he mentioned.
Saying “teach me how to do this” sometimes sounds lazy, so it’s better to learn as much as you can on your own and then coming to them with some specific questions or for validation that your understanding is correct, Rey said. Make sure you don’t step on their toes and don’t make your work public before getting validation from them.
To plan their career growth at a sustainable pace, software engineers should develop a long term vision:
Where do you see yourself in 3 years? And in 5 years? Make sure it’s achievable. Then trace your way back and propose intermediate goals: what do you need at the end of this year in order to achieve that 5y goal? Again, make it achievable. Discuss them with your superiors.
When planning your career, understand that things won’t always go smoothly; there will be setbacks and delays outside of your control. Just like project planning, make room to accommodate for that, Rey concluded.
InfoQ interviewed Bruno Rey about how software engineers can broaden their influence and ensure that their work is recognized.
InfoQ: How can software engineers broaden their influence?
Bruno Rey: Opportunities to broaden your influence are easier to come by in smaller companies or startups where responsibilities aren’t so segmented, and sometimes everybody does everything.
Back in 2013, I was working as a developer in one such company and would normally step out of my role and do tasks that were more associated with Ops: parse logs, restart servers/processes, or gather information about bugs. I was not afraid to just do what needed to be done, even if formally it was someone else’s task. My superiors saw this as a great trait; luckily this type of behavior was encouraged at that company.
InfoQ: What can software engineers do to ensure that their work is recognized?
Rey: Nobody gets a promotion by doing a lot of invisible work. If you want to show ambition you have to be sure that you’re vocal about the work you’re doing, even if that isn’t something that comes to you naturally.
In my case I tend to favor long tenure in jobs, and try to stay in the same company for many years to have a relevant impact. Over the years I found that a brag doc was completely necessary. Especially if you stay in the same place longer than your manager, as this helps a new manager gain context quickly on how you work and in which areas you shine.
A couple of good articles on this are Get your work recognized: write a brag document by Julia Evans and Publishing your work increases your luck by Aaron Francis.
