Growing your career
Career strategy
Choosing companies, teams and specialties deliberately: big tech vs startups, generalist vs specialist.
Most engineers optimize the next ticket and hope a career emerges. Career strategy is the opposite: periodically choosing environments that compound skills, optionality and compensation — then executing hard inside them. You will still be wrong sometimes; the point is to be wrong for reasons you chose, not by default.
Once a year, write a one-page plan: primary optimization (learning / comp / mission / lifestyle), target company stage, desired stem of the T, hard constraints, and a stay-or-go trigger. Revisit after any major offer or promo.
Early career (roughly first 5–8 years) usually leans learning and scope, because skills and reputation compound. Later you may deliberately optimize cash, lifestyle or mission. Doing all three at once is rare. Transferable craft — writing, production ownership, finishing — outlasts whichever framework is loud this year. When offers are close on paper, choose the team.
Concepts in this section
Read them in order.
| Step | Concept | What it answers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Company stage | What are you trading: learning, scope, pay, risk? |
| 2 | Choosing teams | Why do manager, importance and growth beat the logo? |
| 3 | T-shaped skills | What stem and crossbar should you build? |
| 4 | Evaluating startup offers | How do you unbundle cash, equity, runway and scope? |
| 5 | When to switch | Stay for a scope jump, or leave a structural block? |
| 6 | Light public profile | What discoverability is worth doing without a brand business? |
Constraints that dominate
Visa, location, dependents, personal runway and health are not footnotes. Write them first. Within those constraints, optimize. A "dream" seed role that breaks your visa or sleep is mispriced risk.
Patrick McKenzie: describe business outcomes you create — revenue protected, cost removed, risk reduced — not "programmer" as an identity.
Example
Offer A: $180k cash + liquid RSUs, strong manager, moderate scope. Offer B: $140k + 0.15% at seed, claimed 18-month runway, you own the backend. Savings and appetite for scope can make B rational. Debt, dependents or visa can make A dominate. Constraints first; then the equity story.
Common mistakes
- Logo over team. Manager and path usually eat strategy.
- Romanticizing % without strike, preferences, dilution or runway.
- Switching because a week was hard while a scope jump is coming — or staying in a structurally blocked promo.
- Betting identity on one framework. Outcomes travel; fashions do not.
Key takeaways
- Stage trades learning, scope, pay and risk; pick for this season.
- Team (manager, importance, technical depth) usually beats logo.
- Aim for T-shaped skills: a scarce stem plus a useful crossbar.
- Startup equity is a distribution; learn the instruments.
- Switch when growth is structurally blocked; leave with reputation intact.
Further learning
Charity Majors' Engineer/Manager Pendulum talk:
Don't Call Yourself A Programmer (Patrick McKenzie)Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice | Kalzumeus Softwarekalzumeus.comRelated
Employee equity
Options vs RSUs, strike prices and 409A, vesting and exercise windows, and how to evaluate a startup offer with ownership math.
Offers and negotiation
Comp components, why level beats base, market data, negotiation scripts and evaluating startup equity without wishful math.
What a startup is
Startups are companies designed to grow fast. That one constraint explains funding, equity, and why most of them fail.