309. You Are Climbing the Wrong Ladder

Why is it that those over you seem to be so bad at their job? Even when highly qualified people get promoted, it often doesn't work out like you expect. You may have heard of the term the Peter Principle, and that principle can explain some of this, but it also shows this us that sometimes we are climbing the wrong ladder. We can't change others, but we can avoid taking on a role we regret or giving someone else a role they're just not fit for. So, let's talk about how in today's episode of Dev Questions. Software development is more than just writing code. So, let's talk about the rest of it. Specifically, let's talk about climbing the right career ladder. And let's start with briefly describing the Peter Principle since I think that's going to be informative for the rest of our discussion. And the principle states that in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence. What does that mean? What it means is that you know, as you go up the career ladder, at some point you will stop where you're incompetent. Um now, it's pretty harsh, uh but let's look at this in perspective. Let's say you're a software developer, that's probably who I'm talking to right now. Um you're a software developer, you start off as a junior developer, and then you move up to mid-level developer, maybe a senior developer, and then the role opens up for managing the department of developers, and you get nominated because you're a great developer. You may get in that role, and you may succeed. You may do really well, and you may take your department to the next level. And if that's the case, you may get promoted again, maybe to CTO. But maybe it's at that level, or maybe it's at the level of managing your department, where you find out you're just not that good at it. Where maybe at the manager level you realize you're great at software development, you're great at identifying how to even architect the software, but working with people and managing relationships and dealing with difficult employees is just not something you're good at. Well, guess what? Your company isn't going to continue promoting you. Because you're not going to get great reviews from your manager because you're not going to be great at your job anymore. So, you were promoted because you were great at your job, but you landed a spot where you're no longer great at your job, and so you're going to stop right there. That's what the Peter Principle is saying. Is that people get promoted until they don't do a good job anymore, and then they languish in that role or leave. Now, that's a good foundation for our discussion, but let's talk about your career ladder in light of this principle. Because again, we can't change other people. What we can do is learn from this and not fall into the same trap as seemingly a lot of other people have. So, number one, sometimes you don't have a next step. That's hard, but it's the reality of your career. Is that when you're in a job, you may not have a next step. I've been in a number of jobs where I didn't have a next step. So, one of my first jobs was I was working for a software development consulting company, where I was a consultant. And really, I didn't have a next step. The next step was to own the company. I couldn't do that. I can't get promoted to owner somehow. That's not going to happen. I was in that role and that was it. But maybe your next step, maybe there are next steps above you, but they're not your next steps. Maybe you do have Maybe you're a junior developer. And you say, "Okay, my next step is to be a mid-level developer. " Cool. That may be your next step. But maybe you get to mid-level developer, that's as far as you can go. Not because there isn't a role open for a senior developer, not because there isn't the possibility of moving up, but because that's not who you want to be. Because being a senior developer isn't just about being a better developer, it changes the role. It's no longer about primarily writing code sometimes. It's about working on architecture and helping others write code and reviewing code and maybe that's just not for you. You have to understand that sometimes that's not your next step. You don't have a next step. Because that's as far

as you want to go. You want to stop right here. Maybe you're you are going to move up to senior developer, cool, but that's as far as you want to go because your next step would be management and you don't want to do that. You already do enough of that. So sometimes you don't have a next step even if the company does have next steps for you or next levels for you. You have to figure out do I, not generically as a position, do I have a next step? Number two, new roles require new skills. It does not matter what the role is you're in currently, your next role up is going to require different skills. Now, sometimes there are levels within a role. Maybe you're a developer one and they say, "Hey, you know what? We're going to make you developer two. It's more pay. It's a title bump, but you're going to do the same thing. " That's sometimes happens. Often though, it comes with new requirements and especially if you're moving from say a junior developer to a mid-level developer, they're going to It's going to require new skills. Oftentimes junior developers are seen as unskilled or low-skilled and so they're more likely to be helped by senior developers and that's understood. But when you get to the mid-level developer stage, you might not get as much help because you'll be expected to know more and do more on your own. So, that new role just from junior to mid-level may require new skills on your part or improved skills. But then, for example, developer to a senior developer, like I said before, that can be a big change because it goes from I'm writing code all day long. I'm doing, you know, I'm focusing in on writing a lot of good code to I'm focusing on architecture and the big picture of where we're going and helping junior developers improve their skill, which is training and teaching. These are different skills. So, new roles require new skills, which means again, going back to point number one, sometimes you don't have a next step because you don't want to acquire those new skills or you don't think you have those new skills. Now, I would encourage you to realize that you can learn new things. That's always the case. You have the ability to learn new things, so don't eliminate those things right off the bat. But, new roles will require new skills. That's one of the big reasons why software developers don't necessarily make good managers because it's often a whole new set of skills that they either haven't practiced or don't want to learn. And so they get into this role and they realize that the stuff they're dealing with is no longer primarily code, it's primarily people. And that's hard. So, new roles require new skills. That's number two. Number three, plan ahead. If you're looking at the corporate ladder, your ladder specifically and say, "I want to go from here to there. " You need to plan ahead. Again, new roles require new skills. Therefore, you need to plan ahead and say, "Okay, if I want to get to this next level, what are the skills I'm going to need to have that I'm not currently using that I need to build up, improve in, that way I can be ready to move into that new position? " So, plan ahead. Don't just expect to get a new position and then just be great at it. We're not born great at pretty much anything. We have to learn these things even if we have a talent in them. So, you need to plan ahead and practice those new things, build up those skills so you're ready and you don't flounder when you get into that new position and potentially ruin your ability to have that position before you even get chance to get your feet underneath you. Number four, re-evaluate the corporate ladder. We've been given this idea of a corporate ladder and these are the steps positions and these are the levels and somehow one is supposed to lead into the next. You know, so a simple example for this would be junior developer leads to middle developer leads to senior developer leads to, you know, maybe team lead, then to, you know, overall manager, and then maybe, you know, a layer or two above that, and then CTO, and then CEO. Um a junior developer almost certainly will never be the CEO, right? There's even though the ladder looks like a continuous ladder, at some point it stops. Now, you need to look at the ladder not as this is the

steps I have to do, which is just from junior to CEO, you need to look at the ladder and say, "What's the right ladder for me? " What's the right ladder? Because the ladder for you might bounce around a bit. Maybe you're starting in QA, and you're saying, "Okay, well, my next rung is a junior developer. " Because I couldn't get in as a junior developer, but I started in QA, and I'm working on that. So, I'm going to build up my skills, planning ahead. those new skills that I need in order to be a junior developer. And then my next rung would be mid-level developer, but I'm not sure I want to be a senior developer because of the differences in how those changes in the role. And so, maybe you plan out that three-step or three-rung ladder, and say, "Okay, that's my path. " Now, you can change at any time. You don't have to locked in to what you thought earlier on. When I graduated high school, I thought for sure I was going to be an electrical engineer. That didn't happen. And at first, when that career path changed, it felt like I was letting myself down because I wasn't doing what I had planned on doing. But my plans changed, and I found out that I don't love everything about electrical engineering. I love software development a whole lot more, and so that's what I wanted to do. And so, my plans changed, and that's okay. Your plans can change. So, maybe you hit that mid-level developer role and go, "I kind of do want to be a senior developer. " I hit this when I was working for a college where I was a software developer, but I found that, "You know what? I want to be in management. I want to have the responsibility of doing certain things and being more of a people leader rather than a software developer only. " And so, I spent years working as an IT director for that college where I was learning new skills. I was growing actually applying the things I'd already learned. It was more accidental than planned, but I you know, accidentally planned ahead. Um and so, those skills allowed me to move into the position and have more success than I otherwise would have. And my path was not one that I would have planned, you know, eight, you know, 10 years ago, right? Like, I wouldn't have said, "In 10 years I want to be an IT director. " But that's where I was. Now, that leads us to point number five, don't be afraid to go back down the ladder. So, I was an IT director for a number of years, and I realized that I was good at it. I could do a lot of good in the role, but I missed software development. I was doing it some on the side. um consulting on the side as well, but even in my job I was doing some. But, I just I didn't want to be just an IT director. I wanted to be a software developer. And so, in some ways it looked like I went back down the corporate ladder. I went from IT director quote unquote down to senior developer. And that's okay. Because what that did is it gave me what I wanted. And my ladder doesn't have to look like the corporate org chart. It I'm going step by step up the ladder. It may look like I'm going down ladder I'm doing what I want for my career. So, plan ahead, re-evaluate that corporate ladder, and don't be afraid to go back down. All right. Your career will often be defined by how well you perform in your role. That's just how it is. So, do well and you're more likely to be recognized and promoted. Again, being careful there because that Peter Principle. Do poorly and you're more likely to be let go. The other half of the Peter Principle. So, find the right role for you and then working to get better in it is more likely to get you a positive outcome in a career rather than just pursuing the next rung on the corporate ladder. So, plan your next moves very wisely. Thanks for listening. As always, I am Tim Corey. —