The career development of our teammates is among the key responsibilities of a leader - and оur personal career development vision & plan plays a critical role for our long term growth and success. Despite their importance, our career vision is often not getting enough attention and level of detail, or is hampered by easily avoidable mistakes. In this discussion, we’ll address typical mistakes related to long-term career planning, some best practices, and practical steps for building our own long-term career development vision (or the ones of the teammates we are leading), so that career planning becomes a long term journey with clear why/how/what, rather than just a list of SMART goals

1. Mapping Your Career Journey
Marin Dimitrov
Senior Engineering Manager @ Uber
@marin_dim
DEV.BG IT Leads forum
Apr 2020, Sofia|BG

2. “A Journey of a Thousand Miles
Begins with a Single Step”

3. “A Journey of a Thousand Miles
Begins with a Single Step”

4. Topics
Career planning mistakes
Personal values
Strengths & growth opportunities
People
Career intent matrix
Execution

5. About me

7. Common Mistakes

8. Mistake #1
● “Present at 5 local meetups”
● “Complete [X] online course”
● “Speed up [Y] x2”
→ Bottom up / “low hanging fruits”
→ Lack of “big picture” & long term
thinking

9. Mistake #2
5 L7
3 L5
1 L3
4L6
2L4

10. https://hbr.org/2015/06/you-dont-need-a-promotion-to-grow-at-work

11. Mistake #3

12. https://hbr.org/2018/02/before-you-set-new-goals-think-about-what-youre-going-to-stop-doing

13. Career Goals
VS

14. Career Goals
VS

16. Personal Values

17. https://jobs.netflix.com/culture
http://culturecodes.co/

19. Personal Values
● Choose the top 10 values most
important to you personally
● then narrow it down to the top 5
● … and finally down to top 3

21. this is me

22. Strengths & Growth Opportunities

23. Strengths & Growth Opportunities

24. this is me

25. https://medium.com/swlh/the-downside-adbf9a1e3145

26. Strengths & Growth Opportunities
● Strengths & growth areas are
contextual, not absolute
○ need a clear vision on your
desired outcome / role
● Don’t over-index on strengths
○ Can turn into blind spot / gap
● Don’t over-index on growth areas
○ need to be mitigated, so they
don’t become “achilles heels”
○ but don’t try to turn them into
strengths
● Mitigate your weaknesses while further
improving & capitalizing on your
strengths

27. People

28. Mentors

29. https://hbr.org/2011/07/managing-yourself-a-smarter-way-to-network

30. Networking antipatterns
● The wrong structure
○ The formalist
○ The overloaded manager
● The wrong relationships
○ The disconnected expert
○ The biased leader
● The wrong behavior
○ The superficial networker
○ The chameleon

31. Networking
● Information or expertise
● Political support, influence & help
● Personal development & coaching
● Personal support & energy
● A sense of purpose or worth
● Work / life balance & well-being
●

32. https://hbr.org/2011/07/managing-yourself-a-smarter-way-to-network

33. Career Matrix

35. Career Development Questions
● What inspires me?
● What opportunities matter?
● What were the key lessons along my
career path?
● Who motivates me? What would I do
freely?
● What aspects of my work would I like
to change?
● What is the “one thing” that I start
improving today?
● What can I deliver that is meaningful to
me?
● What will my team miss without me?
● What will be better because of my
work?

40. Execution

41. Objectives
Objective Purpose Expected Outcome Partners Risks & Dependencies
output ≠ outcome
(beware of “vanity metrics”)Start with “why” Multiplier effect

42. Agility

43. Commitment

44. Levers

45. Levers
outcomes

46. Levers
outcomesoutcomes

47. Levers
outcomesoutcomes

48. Levers
outcomes
outcomes

49. Levers
outcomes
outcomes
outcomes

51. Thank you!
Career planning mistakes
Personal values
Strengths & growth opportunities
People
Career intent matrix
Execution
@marin_dim