"Four growth strategies for individual contributors"
Below is an article originally written by Patrick Shields, Principal Software Engineer at PowerToFly Partner CircleCI, and published on March 3, 2020. Go to CircleCI's page on PowerToFly to see their open positions and learn more.
There's not a right or wrong career path for software engineers. Some find a natural niche as leaders and work into management positions where they end up leading teams and designing career paths for others. Conversely, some thrive and become leaders by developing their own paths as an individual contributor (IC). Pat Shields, CircleCI's chief architect, recently wrote about his experience growing as an individual contributor, including advice about how engineers on the IC route can succeed in their careers. We're reposting it here.
My first real job in programming started on July 5th, 2007, which means I have just over twelve years of experience as I write this. It's a lot more than nothing, but probably not much more than something. Ten years seems to be about the right amount of time to get good at something, though some amount of natural talent or sheer drive can make it go faster. But growth is not as simple as waiting it out and talent does not supersede the need for experience.
"Players get to that intermediate level where they can already play pretty good, and that's kind of a dangerous period because they tend to start playing only the things that they can play, rather than the things they can't." - Pat Metheny
In fifth grade, I went to a school where I was required to take a French class. I showed no particular aptitude or interest in the language, but was happy to pass through the lessons. After two years, my family moved and I started at a new school where I was able to choose Introductory French or Spanish. I chose French, effectively repeating the previous two years. I have little to no memory of these classes, but I believe I passed through them with ease. After those two years, we moved again and I started at a High School. I was offered a choice of languages to study and I elected for … a year of Introductory French. I was the star pupil of the class, having repeated "Je m'appelle Pat" and "Où est la discothèque" as required for the previous four years.
The following year I entered Intermediate French and the skill gap between myself and my peers immediately dwindled. Despite my five years of experience, I didn't advance much beyond a few simple phrases and a halfway decent accent. I muddled my way through the next two years, but squandered my experience and gave up learning the language after high school. Many of us make this same mistake in our careers. We optimize for a skillset that is easy to gain or stay within the confines of limited expertise. Quite a few folks just don't get the opportunities they need to grow. I have found a few strategies that have helped me grow, and I'd like to share them along with some ideas about how you might apply them.
Assume you are smart enough to understand
In my first job out of school, I worked with some of the most brilliant folks I've ever met. Most were affiliated with Yale via either its computer science department or its high performance computing lab. During my job interview, Nick Carriero asked me if I was familiar with Junit and I tried to pretend I knew what it was beyond a window in Eclipse. I was surrounded by very experienced, very educated, and very accomplished folks. The one benefit of this was learning that in those walls I would never, ever, be the smartest person in the room. To follow along alone was an accomplishment.
Those folks were much more than smart. They were mostly twice my age or more, had studied rigorously in academia or cut their teeth on hard industry problems, and all had a tremendous work ethic. I didn't have their innate talents or that experience, and I was in no danger of being able to do what they did. But that didn't mean I couldn't follow along and learn. So I tried to ask dumb questions and to restate things until I got them right. Being wrong or not knowing something hurt still, but it hurt a little less every time the light bulb finally went off.
Most of what you need to follow the work of those around you is just patience and curiosity. When you encounter things in your work that you don't understand, ask someone to help you figure it out. It could be a piece of code, a system design, or even a business concept like margin. You won't become a quick expert but you will gain a breadth of knowledge. More importantly, you'll learn how to ask questions and learn from those around you. Give yourself space to do good work
Real talk: everywhere you go there will be haunted forests, tech debt, and organizational challenges. Every opportunity comes with constraints. Often, those constraints lead us to choose the lesser of two evils or the best of a bad set of options. In my experience, it's easy to over-dramatize the evil or inherent bad-ness, but the point is that it feels bad. When you consistently do work that you don't take pride in, it's challenging to invest yourself in growth. Engineers in this situation often begin to imagine some panacea that would fix things. If only things were functionally pure or fully asynchronous or crash-only or written in Idris or Rust or actually Go would be preferable, then we could do things the right way. Or so the thinking goes. We convince ourselves that we are talented and great, if only we weren't limited by the things we cannot change.
Don't get stuck thinking that you can't do good work unless something you can't control changes. Find opportunities large or small to try to do something in a way that you are proud of. This can be as small as writing a few methods or functions that you think are great or running a larger project in an exemplary way. When I've done this, I've found that some of my great ideas were great and some were pretty sketchy. If I hadn't put them into action, I'd have missed the opportunity to figure out which ideas had merit.
Focus on the outcomes
As programmers, we spend most of our time living deep in the "how?" Programming is quite literally the process of filling in all the details. Many of us experience frustration in our jobs because we are forced to reckon with ambiguity that our coworkers and peers can shrug off. Earlier in my career, I used to say that there was nothing more terrifying than a meeting that ended in agreement because that just meant you hadn't figured out the details yet. That's a pessimistic extreme, but it's also a fear born out of experience.
By and large, the conferences we go to, the blog posts we read, and the conversations we have focus on the "how?" We talk about programming languages, databases, agile methodology, distributed systems papers, or GraphQL. But for most of us, those are tools to help us do something else. Our stakeholders don't care about the tools, they care about the outcomes. The earlier you are able to focus on outcomes, the more you'll be able to connect with your stakeholders, learn from them, and then help them succeed.
This is a huge topic and a never-ending quest, but you can start by always knowing the answer to the following three questions:
- What problems am I trying to solve for my stakeholders?
- How do I know when I'm done?
- How do I know if it solved the problem?
No matter what process you use, or don't, and no matter who your stakeholders are or how big your organization is, if you know the answers to those questions, they will guide towards a path that is focused on generating outcomes rather than just generating more details.
Do whatever you want, but do it loudly
I was a year or two out of school when I first heard the phrase "It is better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission." It's an old phrase, sometimes attributed to Grace Hopper, but variations have circulated for many years. There are some organizations where creative thinking and empowerment are still frowned upon, but I think this quote misses the mark nowadays. It's still true that asking for permission will likely get you stuck in the mud. The receiver of your request will likely feel the need to do due diligence on the request before passing judgement and, well, it's not likely their top priority or they would've been asking you for the ideas. It's the request that slows things down, not the knowledge of the approach.
I've taken to using a variation of this phrase: "do whatever you want, but do it loudly." If you feel confident that you have a great idea and know how to complete it, go ahead, but first announce it to anyone who will listen. You want to avoid surprise and rumor. By keeping everyone abreast of your actions, you are giving them the knowledge they need to provide you with feedback and a mechanism to do it. I often provide a little space for feedback even, by saying "Unless I hear from you by the end of your day tomorrow, I'll be proceeding." I'm not asking you to vet the approach for me, but if you know I'm headed towards dragons, let me know.
Stay focused on growth
No matter what strategy you choose, as soon as you have the security to do so you should start thinking about your growth. "Where do you want to be in 5 years" is a great question, but sometimes it's impossibly difficult to answer. These strategies won't help you pick a direction, but they'll help you get the most out of wherever you are right now. If you find you can't use these strategies, either because you don't have enough support from your peers and management chain, or because the work model is so inherently broken, it's probably time to look for another opportunity when you are able. Along the way, be proud of your growth and what you've achieved, but don't give up on challenging yourself.
The 4-Day Work Week and Other Employee Retention Strategies You Haven’t Tried Yet
In the “Great Resignation,” an estimated 47 million employees (and counting) voluntarily quit their jobs. The job market still hasn’t recovered from the unprecedented “quit rate” of 3.3% at the Great Resignation’s peak. Now, about 50% of the workforce are “quiet quitters” according to a Gallup poll — meaning, half of workers are disengaged at work and do only the minimum required of their job.
Having engaged talent is a competitive advantage for companies in today’s work environment. Replacing an employee who’s handed in their two-weeks notice can, after all, cost your company 21% of the employee’s annual salary. Employee retention strategies — ones that go beyond a box of donuts in the breakroom — are key to keeping workers engaged in the workplace. But given that overly played-out retention tactics can be ineffective at best and make your company look insincere at worst, it’s important to prioritize the right strategies. To that end, let’s go over some new and improved employee retention strategies that you may not have tried yet.
In this article, you'll find:
- Why employee retention strategies fail
- The best employee retention strategies
- Your employee retention strategy is your DEI initiative
Why employee retention strategies fail
There are plenty of employee retention strategy examples out there, but efforts can fall short. For your employee retention strategies project to be successful, you need to avoid these four common pitfalls.
1. Not delivering on promises. If you say you’re going to do something, follow up on it. Consistency is key to building employee retention strategies. Don’t ask employees to be honest about how they're feeling at work and then ignore their input. Or worse, promise big reform and fall short with token changes.
2. No trust. Studies indicate that “quiet quitting” is largely due to the relationship between employee and boss. Managers need the time, skills, and training to build solid relationships with staff. There are resource forums for people leaders to share ideas. Using tried-and-true best practices is the best strategy to build trust.
3. Siloed initiatives. Employee retention strategies can’t just live in HR. The moment they become siloed within one department or position, they fail. Employee retention strategies need to be a priority in every department and at every level.
4. No resources. Employee retention strategies need resources. To put it plainly, unfunded initiatives don’t work. Employees should be compensated for extra work such as sitting on an employee retention committee or putting together a workplace social. Likewise, pay raises and compensation should be a central part of the conversation. Remember, one of the main issues for quiet quitters is doing extra work for no extra pay.
The best employee retention strategies for 2022
With the don’ts out of the way, let’s move on to the best employee retention strategies you can start implementing today.
Listen to your employees
Well-run companies spend time and effort collecting feedback and customer satisfaction information. But what about employees? Managers need to ask, “how’s my driving?” Having data is critical to understanding how your employees are affected and making the necessary changes in order for employee retention strategies to take off. Send out an anonymous workplace survey asking about stress levels, feelings of creativity, people’s sense of inclusion, and how connected they are with their managers. If you’re not sure what to measure, start with a couple in-depth interviews. See what people want to talk about. The responses in the interviews will give you the basis for your wider survey.
Be transparent
If you ask your employees to be honest in giving feedback, management needs to be honest and transparent too. Acknowledge publicly the challenges the company faces based on what your employees have told you. This is the first step in accountability. Be transparent about compensation, pay raises, and benefits. Did you realize it is perfectly legal for employees to openly discuss compensation? This traditional taboo is becoming a common water cooler conversation. Social media is informing workers how to advocate for themselves. Meet them where they are. Actions speak louder than words.
Recognize and reward people, not just numbers
Over 1 in 5 employees does not feel valued at work. Feeling valued means knowing that your work is worthwhile and desirable. Watching the same sales people get rewarded for hitting their numbers again and again can be demoralizing for those who go comparatively unrecognized. Know your team and what they’re working on. Openly celebrate different kinds of triumphs, big and small, and be specific when you do. Helping people feel seen takes more than a generic “good job.”
Be flexible about work
Rethink how, where, and how long we do work. Research shows that 52% of workers prefer a hybrid remote-office work model. Employees even prefer it over a 10% pay raise. Employers must respond to this need as part of honing effective employee retention strategies.
And, as far as flexibility goes, time ownership is a massive benefit to offer employees — including by enabling them to work fewer days. Iceland is a leader in experimenting with the 4-day work week. Icelandic companies found it reduced burnout while improving work-life balance. Consider flexible arrangements that have proven results like these. Imagine how teams can be ambassadors for the company when they enjoy a new normal.
Facillitate growth
Employees that can’t see a clear career path within their company will look elsewhere to grow. The longer an employee stagnates in a position, the more their likelihood of leaving increases. Managers need to regularly work with each employee to envision their growth. Movement can be within their same position or laterally, as well. Give employees a discretionary budget for ongoing education and skills enhancement. Encourage projects and rotations with different departments to learn new skills.
Dust off that DEIB initiative
The best employee retention strategies are ones that are formed through a DEIB lens. DEIB strategies can be innovative for employee retention, as they (should) focus on all the things that make everyone supported, safe, and valued in the workplace. DEIB is, after all, not about making special accommodations for marginalized people; it’s about making the workplace better for everyone.
Your best employee retention strategy is a strategic DEIB initiative
DEIB initiatives make apt springboards for a number of successful employee retention strategies by listening to talent, creating custom work environments, and making employees across identities feel valued. Focus your efforts on DEIB, and employee retention will be one of many positive outcomes. PowerToFly has expert DEIB consultants that can help you jump start your DEIB-informed employee retention plan.Tips Every Customer Success Manager In The SaaS Industry Should Know
💎 Want to thrive as a customer success manager? Watch the video to the end to get some advice on how to do it.
📼Every customer success team has to follow some steps to achieve efficiency. Play this video to get three top tips that every manager in the SaaS industry should keep in mind. You'll hear from Miki Lager, Director of Customer Success at Tackle, who shares her own experience and knowledge.
📼 Customer familiarity for success. Tip #1: Know your customer. Understand their business. There are three steps in knowing how to navigate that. First, don't make it so operational. Build a true relationship with the client. Understand who are their competitors, what are the challenges they're facing, what's their true mission at heart, and how are they hoping to achieve that. Next, truly understand who the core team is that you should be working with. And finally, make sure to understand their key strategic and revenue goals.
📼Achieve customer success by delegating. Tip #2: Co-manage your customer. Not one person owns the client relationship at your company. Lead with others. Make sure to bring other stakeholders in, so that you can make sure the customer is on their path to success and that they can scale with your business solution. Team up with sales. Build a really strong relationship with your support team. Partner with the product team. The customer needs to understand where your business is headed in the future quarters so that they can plan accordingly, but also for your product team to then understand where the customer's product roadmap is headed, so you can align on strategy and best practices for that customer.
Customer Roadmap To Success - Tip #3: Define A Customer Journey
Have a defined customer journey. If the customer doesn't know where they're heading, it's going to cause some problems. Give them a clear roadmap to success. You can always adjust milestones as needed, based on different goals and different initiatives that you're working on with them. Once you have the customer journey defined, you can figure out which milestones align with the growth strategy the customer has in mind.
📨 Are you interested in joining Tackle? They have open positions! To learn more, click here.
Get to Know Miki Lager
She’s passionate about building client success teams for rapidly growing SaaS organizations. She’s been a leader at small to medium-sized companies, supporting the life cycle of startups through acquisition, and integration. If you are interested in a career at Tackle, you can connect with Miki on LinkedIn. Don’t forget to mention this video!
More About Tackle
Tackle enables software companies to accelerate and operationalize the use of Cloud Marketplaces like AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Red Hat, without the need for significant engineering resources. Their platform and team come together to make it easier for customers to build, grow, and scale their Marketplace businesses. Tackle was born and built as a remote organization and welcomes others who believe remote companies are the way companies will be built into the future. They believe that everyone has an opportunity to learn and grow in their community.
Nestlé Supply Chain Virtual Recruiting Info Session
Nestlé would like to invite you to their Supply Chain virtual recruiting info session on September 29th from 4-5PM EST. Sign up for this event with leaders from our Supply Chain team to get an insider’s view on what it’s like to work at one of Gartner’s top-ranked supply chains for 2022 and the world’s largest food and beverage organization!
Register here!
NGA's Nazanin Brown on Being a Full-Time Working Mom
To say that Nazanin (Nazy) Brown and her family lead active lives is a bit of an understatement.
“We've got four young children and all of them are in multiple sports throughout the school year, as well as the summer,” she explains. “My husband and I are both coaches, so a lot of our time goes from work to home, out to the field to coach or watch games, and then back home for showers, dinner, and bed.”
With an always-on-the-go home life, it was important to Nazy to have a career that is stimulating but also allows her to be present in the lives of her children.
We sat down with Nazy to learn how she has mastered work-life balance as a Contracting Officer within the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency while she keeps her busy household running smoothly.
From Crime TV Fan to Special Agent
At a young age, Nazy loved crime TV shows, which influenced her choice to study forensic psychology. She went on to earn a master’s degree in the subject, where she got some exposure to federal government agencies.
“During my master's degree, we had a lot of recruiters come to our program,” she recounts. “One of the recruiters from an intelligence agency told us that they often hired people from our program as special agents.”
Nazy is also fluent in Farsi, and in addition to her choice of master's program, this made her an ideal candidate for many agencies.
“I began interviewing for special agent roles based on my Farsi skills,” she reveals. “I got a few job offers, and I landed a job as an entry-level contract specialist in the private sector.”
Working for a government contractor, Nazy quickly advanced in her career and eventually became a Senior Contracting Negotiator for Lockheed Martin — and she was loving it.
“I just really liked it and thought it was a great field to be in,” she says.
And while her career advanced, so did her personal life. She became a young mother with increasing responsibilities at home, which led her to be more mindful of where she was dedicating her time.
“At that point, I was putting in so many hours — it's not a 40-hour work week,” she admits. “It wasn't uncommon for me to sometimes work weekends, especially during proposal season.”
As Nazy continued to pile on the overtime, she saw that she wasn’t able to be the mom she wanted to be.
“I wanted to be able to cut work off when I'm at home,” she recalls. “I didn't want to be that mom that comes home and is on her laptop. This was when I realized that having a job that is strictly limited to just 40 hours a week would be best for our family.”
A Parent-Compatible Workplace
Through friends, Nazy learned more about working in the public service and realized that not only would she not have to work overtime, but it would also allow her to work close to her children.
“Many agencies have onsite daycares,” she notes. “I knew that would help so much with commuting and my stress level, as well as the cost. That was my number one reason to jump into the federal government.”
So, Nazy applied for a role that looked interesting and soon found herself working as a Contract Specialist in the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The onsite daycare took in her oldest, who was then a toddler, and promised a spot to her second child, who was on the way.
“Having my children onsite with me instead of having to drop them off in another part of the city before work every day pretty much changed my entire life,” she reflects.
With her childcare issues solved and a manageable number of working hours, Nazy was able to focus more on her career development and explore her options. It was her husband, who works in the Intelligence Community (IC), who convinced her to consider switching to intelligence.
“My husband told me that the IC is just a different animal, and he was right. The contracting is different. The mission is amazing. So I decided to look into the IC,” she says.
Applying for roles in the IC required her to rework her entire application package, but her preparation paid off when she landed a role as a Contracting Officer at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
“Since I've come to the IC, I've been able to broaden my skills,'' remarks Nazy. “It's an entirely different contract writing system, and the IC’s mission and impact are far greater in size and scope, which has really expanded my knowledge. I've learned so much in the three years that I've been here,” she says.
The Secrets to Work-Life Balance for Working Parents
Over the past two and a half years, working from home became the norm for some parents. For Nazy, this was not an option because of the sensitive nature of the data she handles at NGA — and she actually prefers it this way.
“I like the fact that I can get my work done without interruptions from my kids. And when I go home, I take my lanyard off, hang it up, and I go right into mom mode,” she says.
For other parents looking to have this same work-life balance, Nazy offers the following tips:
- Look for jobs with short commutes. Commuting to work for an hour each way might not seem like a lot in the beginning, but over time it can take a toll”, Nazy warns. “Try to get everything set up in your local area as close as you can. In an online job search, set the parameters to five or ten miles from home, max.”
- Find an organization that offers practical support to working parents. “I don't think a lot of people realize that many government agencies offer onsite childcare,” she shares. “I've had four young children who all went through them and I have nothing but good things to say about them. So consider an employer that offers this, instead of the commercial child care centers, which are double the price.”
- Have food prep on point. Between work and her children’s sports activities, Nazy can’t cook something from scratch every night of the week. “I start the week on prepped meals. By Thursday, we're finishing everything that’s in the fridge, and then on Friday we order something or go out to eat,”
- Take advantage of employer wellness offerings. “You need to take care of yourself as a mom, '' she advises. “NGA gives us three hours a week for physical fitness training, pilates, or yoga classes, which are all provided at work. Taking advantage of that during the work day is so much easier than trying to work out at home.”
