I seem to persistently waffle on my career. Yesterday it all felt so clear. A path from Individual Contributor to Tech Lead to Engineering Manager. Do it with Rails and JS. Be there in the next five years. I already have 8 years in the industry, this isn’t unreasonable.
Why does it feel so impossible and like the wrong track for me today? I had a lot of trouble focusing yesterday and that’s the likely culprit for my hesitation today. If I feel like I’m being productive, then I feel like I’m succeeding and getting somewhere. But by who’s definition of success and productivity?
For me, success in the day-to-day looks like flow. I’m feeling most productive and successful when I get a flow going. But that’s near impossible to come by with programming because of all the stopping and thinking and logic involved.
I need to recouch what success means here, without flow. Is it acquiring knowledge? Is it gaining understanding and facility with the language or framework? I think that may be a key. If that’s the key to getting good and being productive, by my personal standard, then how do I acquire that? How do I fit in that work along with everything else on my plate?
More importantly, how do I do so consistently and with joy?