The “Plan”
One of the questions generally asked in interviews is “Where do you see yourself in five years?” At the time, coming out of university, I figured I would actually think about this so I wouldn’t look like a total goof when it inevitably came up. It ended up pretty standard: pay my dues, shoot for making senior developer, be on track to, if not already, holding down some major project and responsibilities. While my end goal still is to hit the senior developer rank, I’m not so sure I want it in the immediate future. Granted, I’m only 3 years out of school, so my mind may change in the next two years. However, just by working and discussing with my peers at my company, the role of senior developer comes with a lot of responsibility (which I don’t mind) and a lot of extraneous crap (which I do mind).
Politics is the nature of the beast, no matter if you’re in academia or industry. Simply by working with people you have to deal with conflicting personalities, different ideas and unusual processes. In a more junior position, one is generally shielded from a lot of the political crap that goes on behind the scenes. Your manager gives you tasks, you do them, and the only real conflict you may deal with is with others who are around the same level of the food chain you are on. Of course, your manager might be a douchebag too, but for the most part you’re dealing with people you work with rather than for.
When you actually move up to a lead role, even if you aren’t a manager, you start dealing with management crap. It’s more sophisticated and complex than peer-to-peer crap, and there’s often less you can do about it. How much you can do about it depends on the company culture; is constructive criticism encouraged, or is it merely dismissed as “negativity”? Are collaborative efforts encouraged, or is the term just a buzzword to fake an inclusive environment? How much does management listen to the troops, trying to understand what’s going on in the trenches? Not being able to do anything is one of the most frustrating things when dealing with crap.
In analyzing any situation, I always ask if I’m ready for it. Ready or not, life comes with some unexpected bumps and situations. Work’s thrown a bit of a curveball, and the ramifications are yet to be determined. Overall, the last three years have gone nowhere near what my original “plan” was, but it’s not like it’s been a terrible experience; far from it, in fact (aside from a couple of hiccups). It’s often said life is what happens when you’re busy making plans. I plan to just roll with how things come; dealing with the unexpected separates the good developers from the bad ones.