The inspiration for this article comes from a recent chat with a good friend.

When graduation was approaching, I had to find a job.
But back then I was actually super confused:

  • I had no career development plan, I didn’t even have a preference for what kind of company I wanted to join (anyway I can only write code)
  • Even if I had preferences (like high pay, low workload, close to home), I didn’t know which company met my preferences
  • Even if I knew there were such companies (like my imagined Google), I couldn’t necessarily get in
  • People’s takes on career development online/in life are all over the place (like coding is a young person’s job), and even contradict each other

So holding the happy mindset that “when the car gets to the mountain there will be a road,”
I went to the first company that gave me an offer.
(Turned out work was unexpectedly fishy, see 《Earlier Article》)

When I look back at this naive thinking today,
my biggest insight is:
the amount of information really is the determining factor of decision quality.

I think my confusion at the time was completely normal,
and my decision mechanism (going to the first suitable one) didn’t have major issues either.
Because I now think:

  • There’s no best strategy, only the strategy you most admire
  • Need to rely not only on self-struggle, but also consider the historical process
  • Goals often aren’t set in stone from the start, but need to be constantly updated

No Best Strategy

When facing multiple-choice questions,
people always want to find the correct answer.
But not all choices are multiple-choice,
some choices have no standard answer,
at which point people want to pick C.

Like for career-related topics,
there’s always this kind of question:
“Is going to a big company better? Or going to a startup?”

Indeed, with insufficient information,
this kind of question is very hard to answer.
Richard Liu has a quite well-written article 《Career Choice: Am I Suited for a Big Company, Unicorn, or Baby Unicorn?》 that’s about this topic.

The advantages of these company types represent different strategies:

  • Startup: Tons of opportunities, very free, huge sense of accomplishment if things succeed. Suited for adaptable people who want to handle things on their own.
  • Unicorn: Future prospects, all-around relatively excellent, team level will be relatively high. Suited for people with outstanding business skills who want to succeed quickly.
  • Big company: Stable development, big social influence, work won’t encroach too much on personal life. Suited for people who care about work-life balance, who want stable work.

Like a friend talked with me about his job-hopping strategy,
which is picking Series C / Series D unicorn companies to go to,
as long as the trend doesn’t change,
in a year or two the company can IPO,
then in another two or three years options can be cashed out.
This way he can use his outstanding work skills,
to gain decent compensation.

But personally I wouldn’t choose this strategy.
I think humans’ career feelings can be divided into six aspects:

  • Compensation: Are you satisfied with the labor equivalent (money) obtained from labor?
  • Business: Do you have a sense of achievement from the things you do themselves?
  • Experience: Is the work experience (environment/system) comfortable?
  • Development: Is the work content stable? Are you expecting things from the work’s future?
  • Life: Is the life intersecting with work (commute/holidays) comfortable?
  • Team: Are you happy with the people you work with?

The most ideal job is when all these questions get positive answers.
But often when seeing this kind of question,
what’s felt instead is a kind of powerlessness:
my work affects me a lot, but many aspects seem unable to change.

That’s exactly right, that’s how it is.

Historical Process

One’s fate, of course, depends on self-struggle, but you also have to consider the historical process.

Many have heard this line, it was said by senior Jiang when inspecting United Engineering Company.
There’s an example I often give, the logic is similar:

A person’s development is actually caused by the multiplication principle.
Aphid and Big Tree are good friends,
Aphid works in Hooli’s advertising department, often slacking;
Big Tree works in PiedPiper’s business department, 9 to 10 PM, 6 days a week.
Over a year, Hooli developed stably, grew 20%,
the advertising department grew even faster, grew 50%,
Aphid was a bit slacking, other coworkers all scored A, only he was B.
And Big Tree, worked seriously, outstanding contribution, personal score A++,
but PiedPiper had mediocre performance this year, only grew 5%,
Big Tree’s business department even declined 20%.
Result: Hooli, due to rapid development, Aphid became a little Manager starting to manage people;
while the entire business line Big Tree was in had to be cut and laid off.

To summarize this rough story with elegant math:
Personal growth = Person * Team * Company * Historical Process.

Like the quote many unicorn companies cite:

if you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship,
you don’t ask what seat.
You just get on.

– Eric Schmidt

So if you have the opportunity,
when interviewing at a company,
go chat with your future teammates.
For startups, see what the founders are like;
when the company is divided into different departments, see what the department Leaders are like;
for flat work atmospheres, just chat with the (potential) future teammates.
In suitable atmospheres, excellent teams,
personal growth will have the greatest acceleration.

Constantly Updated Goals

As a kid wanted to be a scientist,
in university wanted to be CEO,
after graduating wanted to be CTO,
at interviews thought being architect wasn’t bad,
after joining thought just be a backend then,
now think writing good Python business code is the real goal.
The above is the meaning of “updated goal” (not really)

Seriously,
I feel that at work besides specific skill improvement,
another very important part is increase in mastered information.
When information is insufficient,
humans have a hard time making optimal choices.
This is why when writing programs,
we always want to clearly ask “what are the requirements?” “how might the business logic change in the future?”
As information increases,
humans can always make suitable decisions.

So actually the process of being exposed to work,
is also a process of a person constantly expanding their information,
then based on the information mastered,
constantly correcting goals.

Summary

So for the theme “how should tech people choose their career path,”
this article said some empty politely-phrased reasoning:

  • Choose suitable strategies to find a desirable company
  • Pay attention to the team you work with, also very important
  • When information increases, update goals in time

emmmmmm, feels like the reasoning here is a bit too empty.
Then let’s talk about some concrete content in the next article XD
Wish everyone can find their own desired career, and struggle for it for life~

(End)