v0.5 Wayfinding

I meet a lot of people who want to change careers, which isn’t surprising since about 40% of people are dissatisfied with their current job. Each career changer I meet is at a different stage in the process. Some have a definite transition plan, but many seem lost. By the end of this week’s patchNotes, you’ll have a roadmap for navigating your career pivot with clarity and confidence.

"The past is never wasted. Pivoting is about making sure you don’t waste your future."
– Adam Markel, Pivot

Wayfinding is about figuring out where we are and where we want to go. It’s not a one-time event but an ongoing process that often relies on imperfect information. There is no Google Maps for career changers. Instead, we have to piece together clues from within ourselves and our surroundings to lead us where we want to go.

Since career changes are often murky and non-linear, at least annually, it’s beneficial to check-in. The first part of wayfinding is figuring out where the heck we are now:

1️⃣ You are here, now

The best way to know where you are is to reflect on where you have been. Progress is best measured by how we compare to our former selves not by comparing ourselves to others.

Looking back at the last year: what are your greatest growth areas?

• Maybe you’ve gone from never writing a line of code to solving simple coding challenges confidently.
• Or perhaps you are now comfortable discussing technical topics with other engineers. 

No matter how small these milestones may seem, they matter and form the foundation for everything ahead.

 2️⃣ Finding your North Star

Ancient wayfinders, including Disney’s Moana™️, navigated using the stars to get where they needed to go. Your North Star will operate similarly: a clear, unmoving, overarching goal that keeps you moving in the right direction.

What’s your North Star? Where are you trying to get? For you, it might be landing your first job in tech, first freelance client, or first promotion. At this stage, focus on direction not timeline. We’ll get to time-based goals in the next edition.

Your North Star is bigger than a goal. The path may be long, but your North Star will always guide the way no matter how long your career pivot takes or how lost you get along the way.

3️⃣ Understand your motivation(s)

Everyone’s motivations for making a career pivot are unique. Your motivations might include:

• Financial security
• A passion for technology
• Flexibility to care for family

What matters most is that your motivations resonate deeply with you.

Your motivations are the why behind your career pivot. Understanding your why is critical to building the perseverance you will need to execute a successful career pivot.

4️⃣ Invest your time wisely

Breaking into tech requires three broad skillsets: technical skills, soft skills, and networking skills. 

• Technical skills are, table stakes, the minimum necessary skills to do your target job. For software engineers think coding and design.
• Soft skills help you articulate your value to employers and navigate workplace dynamics.
• Networking skills uncover opportunities, connect you with target organizations, and generate referrals.

Your weakest skill set is your biggest growth opportunity. Investing here is likely to yield the greatest return. Your strengths are often sources of motivation. By highlighting them, you can propel yourself forward. Ask a friend, colleague, or mentor for feedback if you are unsure of your weaknesses and strengths.

A note on balance

As engineers, we tend to overinvest in technical skills because they seem like the most important area. We assume that the better we are at coding and design, the more likely we are to be hired. Meanwhile, someone far less technical is already hired because they invested equally in networking and soft skills.

Don’t neglect non-technical skills. Strive for balance. Well-rounded candidates are often the ones who succeed even if more technical applicants are available.

5️⃣ Committing to your path

The most potent commitments are the ones we make to ourselves. Some people seem to find their North Star and march towards it easily, but most of us need to work at it, fail a ton, get distracted, fail some more, and find our way through it all. That’s okay; it’s all part of the process.

What you do becomes who you are. If you keep at something long enough, it becomes second nature. Forget aptitude, there are plenty of successful developers that are worse at math than you or who struggled more learning to code. They just kept at it longer. You are a software engineer as soon as you decide to be one.  

My hope is that whatever your North Star is you will decide to commit to it, and keep moving forward, no matter how long it takes. 

From now on, you are no longer an aspiring software engineer, you’re a software engineer. All you need to do now is live as one, regardless of if you are being paid as one yet. Start today, learn, write code, and repeat.

Once you’ve committed to your path you can begin to align your goals and actions to your North Star. Specific, time-based goals partnered with consistent action will get you where you want to go. Next week, we’ll cover some best practices for goal setting.

🐛 Bug Fixes: Decision Paralysis

When faced with many options, the weight of making a choice makes any choice feel impossible. You may have heard of analysis paralysis, but I can guarantee you have experienced it. In Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals, he encourages readers to overcome this common trap by becoming a decision hunter. A decision hunter seeks to actively locate the decisions we avoid and decide them, imperfectly. The reason this is so powerful is that we waste so much time on indecision that, most of the time, we are better at making imperfect decisions and using the time savings for action. 

Let’s hunt down some frequently avoided decisions:

Bug Report: I can’t pick a language to learn and/or I keep switching between languages.

Resolution: Pick a language and stick with it until you feel proficient. Learning any one language deeply is better than knowing the basics of many languages. A simple rubric could be to pick the most popular language in your area of interest based on job listings. Try committing to a language for a fixed period, like six months. During this time, build real projects and dive deeply into the language’s ecosystem. You will learn more languages in your career so don’t let deciding the first one keep you from getting started. 

Bug Report: I can’t decide where to start between CS50, 100Devs, FreeCodeCamp, The Odin Project, Full Stack Open etc.

Resolution: Here’s the truth: You can’t go wrong. Pull one out of a hat if you need to. None of them are going to hand you a job, no course, bootcamp, or certification will. Focus on learning effectively. Pay attention to the things you don’t understand yet; those are clues. Use other sources to fill in the gaps in your understanding. Don’t let choosing a resource prevent you from starting. Pick one and work at it until you finish it.

Bug Report: I can’t decide what project to build for my portfolio.

Resolution: Instead of building a tutorial project, build something related to the area you want to work, something that will stretch your current abilities, teach you something new, or ignite your passion. You’ll learn more by building real things than you would from any tutorial. If you are struggling with project ideas, check out Coding Challenges. Another great way to come up with project ideas is to take a product that exists and give it a twist.

⚡️ Quick Bytes: Wayfinder’s Companions

• 🎤 The Programming Podcast hosted by Leon Noel and Danny Thompson, expert career advice for anyone interested in working in technology.
• 📚 Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman – One of my best reads of 2024. MFM has had a large influence on my approach to building a meaningful, imperfect life. A must-read!
• 📚 Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans – This might be THE career crisis companion. I picked this book up when I was dissatisfied with my own career and it helped me sketch out the path(s) forward.
• 📺 5 steps to designing the life you want by Bill Burnett, TEDx Stanford

📝 Final Notes

Alan Kay said that “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”. There’s no better place to invent our futures than in our life's work. I hope today’s exercises helped you identify where you are now, where you want to go, and the motivations driving you. Most importantly, I hope you found the courage to commit to the path that feels right to you.

It’s so easy to get stuck early on. Deciding where to invest your time is hard. The truth is many of these decisions will feel less important as you move forward. That’s why making quick, imperfect decisions like we discussed in Bug Fixes is helpful. These decisions are rarely fatal, and you can always use your North Star to help guide a course correction. Just keep moving forward, learning, and building.

In the next edition, we’ll break down our guiding meta-goal into manageable milestones to help you stay motivated and on track during your career pivot. Until then, be well!

Happy New Year!

Cheers,

Ian