One of the challenges faced by everyone that embraces a career is keeping those fires burning. It is in our nature to want to experience new things and meet different challenges. Oh sure, there are those that are perfectly happy with a job that is the same day in and day out. However, we have already established that our nature does not allow that contentment (or resignation).
Starting Your IT Career
The first decade or so of an IT career is jam-packed with new. This newness includes languages, tools, problems, and more. There is just an overwhelming amount of things to learn and master. That often leads to a feeling of drinking from the firehose every day we go to work. Boredom is not an issue, and even burnout seems a distant fear. Of course, this experience can vary based on the employer we have or projects we take. Rather than travel down that tangent, we can look at the many times we have addressed keeping your career on track no matter your job situation.
In The Groove
Once you move beyond those hectic early years, there is a level of mastery that has been developed over the years. This mastery often spans multiple languages and environments making you highly employable. The stress and strain of those early years can make it hard (or not desirable) to maintain such a torrid pace. That is ok; we have ways to adjust our goals and career path that are not as time-consuming. This approach also is more suitable to our aging body and growing responsibilities outside of career.
Much like our early years, there are the options to go deep or wide in our focus. The investment required for either choice is not the same once we have a decade or two under our belt. There will be far less that we have not seen before. We also will have a solid foundation to build on. Thus, new concepts are more comfortable to learn and master. That means we can adjust our plans and still outpace the competition without running into an early grave.
Adjusting For The Long Term
The early goals of learning and mastering new languages can be replaced in part or entirely with a focus on business and management skills. These will often be more career-appropriate and allow you a broader range of opportunities while still staying current in technology. I have found that adding a new language every year or two keeps my resume fresh and marketable without too much demand on time. A few hours a week can get you familiar enough to do everyday tasks in a new language within a few months. You can get that done during a lunch break or messing around on a weekend afternoon once or twice a month.
The hands-on skills you develop early on can also be replaced by experience and knowledge that can be gained “for free.” These sort of skills can be developed and refined through reading or by consuming podcasts and technical video or audio content. That means you can work on your career while going for a jog or mowing the lawn. The hands-on portion can be kept up to date with small projects here and there. These little projects become easier to spot as your experience grows. Likewise, opportunities in your local community are more likely to appear. It is not quite an autopilot situation, but almost.
