The Software Developer's Career Handbook

Chapter 40. A Deliberate Career

I want to hear the story of how you got your first gig in high tech. You probably did everything you were supposed to do: you went to the career center, searched the job boards, and attended career fairs.

It was all vaguely confusing. Nothing was concrete. You threw that diligently crafted résumé built on little hands-on experience at dozens of randomly smiling people and wondered, Am I ever going to get a job?

And then it happened. A vacation in Italy. Some bizarre, unimaginable confluence of events started with you being blind drunk and broke in Florence. You met this guy on the street who was clearly American; you hit it off. Long story short, this chance meeting on the other side of the planet resulted in you getting your first engineering gig at a fashionable startup in Silicon Valley.

Your thought as you settled into your bright ’n’ shiny new gig was, I’ve no control over what is happening to me. I just need to go with the flow, and I’m going to randomly meet someone who is going to randomly believe in me and then money will rain from the sky.

As an avid fan of instinct, a frequent receiver of random career blessings, and a professional identifier of random opportunity, I understand and have lived this perspective, but hope isn’t going to define your career. You need a strategy.

Three Choices

When I write the word strategy, I picture this thick book with a light blue cover and black binding. The title is My Career Strategy, and below the ...