Your career is your responsibility
Don’t wait for things to happen. Make them happen.
Consider a software developer: her name is Alice. She joined her company a couple of years ago and she’s really enjoying her job. She works with a team that gives her enough autonomy to work in the way that she wants, using the tooling that she prefers.
She feels that she can pick and choose the work she is most comfortable with, and she’s recently given some technical talks to the department about her project because she is working on improving her public speaking. She gets to attend a conference of her choice every year. She has also started mentoring a graduate developer who has recently joined the company. In the recent company survey on employee happiness, she was extremely positive in all of her responses.
Next, let’s consider another software developer called Bob. He joined his company a couple of years ago, and he’s stuck in a rut. He never feels like it’s clear as to what he should be working on and why, and he feels stuck with the tools and language that were provided for him.
He’s never been asked to speak about any of his work to a wider forum, and has never been asked whether he would like to attend any technical conferences. He’s quite unsure about whether he wants to stay at the company as he’s never been shown…
