Real Talk on Tech’s Toughest Career Choices
The web is full of podcasts that dole out generic career advice - “Follow your passion!”, “Keep learning!”, “Set clear goals!” This is all good if you’re just starting out, but the pointers start to lose their luster quickly as you progress and start hitting invisible walls in your growth.
All of a sudden, it’s harder to get promoted, opportunities to advance become more ambiguous, and the choices in front of you aren’t as obvious as they were when you first started your job.
What does it take to get to the Staff engineer level? If you want to become an executive in the future, what should you do now to maximize your chances of hitting that goal? Should you have a time-bound career map or focus on unique opportunities that pop up serendipitously? Should you try your hand at entrepreneurship, and if so - how do you build a robust safety net?
For these questions and more, The Work Item is the podcast where I attempt to answer them with help from folks that went through trial by fire. They are not social media thought leaders - they are actual practicioners who have first-hand experience dealing with some of the more thorny challenges in this industry.
With folks like Jason Lengstorf (Founder, Learn With Jason), Craig Hewitt (Founder, Castos), Saron Yitbarek (Founder, CodeNewbie), Rob Walling (Founder, MicroConf), Cedric Chin (Founder, CommonCog), Jason Fried (CEO, 37signals), Gennadiy Korol (CEO, Moon Studios), Mayuko Inoue (iOS Engineer, Apple), Camille Fournier, and many, many more you will get extraordinary insights that will help you unlock your career potential beyond the basics you’ll learn elsewhere.
Who is the host?
The podcast is hosted by me - Den Delimarsky. I am a Principal Product Manager currently working in the cybersecurity division at Microsoft. Prior to this, I was a Group Product Manager at Netlify, and before that - a Technical Advisor for a Corporate Vice President at Microsoft (I’ve made a few jumps). You can learn more about my work on my personal website.
How can I suggest a guest or nominate myself?
Send me a note to [email protected] with a few details about your work or the guest that you think would be interesting to have on the show. Would be happy to chat!
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Feedback
I am always looking forward to receiving your feedback - send me an email and tell me how this podcast can be better!