Where do you see yourself in five years? The classic interview question is the adult equivalent of “What do you want to be when you grow up?”: it has some socially acceptable answers and a long enough time horizon that you don’t need to commit.1 But if you’re a senior software engineer looking to keep growing in your career, the question becomes very real.2 Where do you see yourself going?
Two Paths
You may find yourself at a fork in the road (Figure P-1), two distinct paths stretching ahead. On one, you take on direct reports and become a manager. On the other, you become a technical leader without reports, a role often called staff engineer. If you really could see five years ahead on both of these paths, you’d find that they have a lot in common: they lead to many of the same places, and the further you travel, the more you’ll need many of the same skills. But, at the start, they look quite different.
Figure P-1. A fork in the road.
The manager’s path is clear and well traveled. Becoming a manager is a common, and perhaps default, career step for anyone who can communicate clearly, stay calm during a crisis, and help their colleagues do better work. Most likely, you know people who have chosen this path. You’ve probably had managers before, and perhaps you have opinions about what they did right or wrong. Management is a well-studied discipline, too. The words ...
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