Where will you be in five years? What are you doing? Who is your future self?

If you have ever written a growth plan for yourself that goes beyond the next few months, you likely know these questions. And you know how hard it is to answer them. But it is even harder to translate that into actionable steps, especially for things that are not clearly mapped out. If you are a mid-level engineer, what does it even mean to be a senior engineer? What is a staff engineer even doing?

Luckily, you are not alone. You can tap into the experiences of others to lift the fog and see the path forward. Let’s explore together how to do that!

You’re an engineer leader, Harry!

In early 2024 I was Tech Lead for two teams with roughly 20 engineers. When we were going through a re-org, two more teams were added. THis more than doubled the amount of engineers. It was big and I felt lost.

For two teams I managed to be omni-present and have insights into every project that was happening. It was stressful, but possible. Now, we had more than 10 different initiatives constantly running at the same time. What I had done so far became impossible, I would become a bottleneck. This situation was new to me, I had no clue what I should focus on. How could I effectively delegate? How could I keep certain standards without constantly checking in and micro-managing people?

To my luck, our group wasn’t the biggest. We had other people who already faced the same challenges. Now, I only had to figure out how to take advantage of that - by getting them to answer my questions. I vaguely knew what they are doing, but how does it look from their perspective? What are the struggles?

I had 4 short coffee chats with different people - All of them helped me tremendously, one has been my mentor since then. They did not solve my problems. Instead, they showed me options on how I could find solutions myself by inspiring me with their experiences.

You can do it

What worked for me has worked for others - and can work for you as well! I have given this advice to quite a few people by now, time to put it into writing. So, let’s make this practical - Here is what you need to do in four steps:

1. Identify who could help you
2. Reach out
3. Run the Interview
4. Revisit and collect learnings

Identify who could help you

The first step can be the hardest - You need to figure out who can help you. If you already have some names in mind, great, jump to the next step.

If not, here is how you can get a list of people: Find a person that is well connected in your organisation. It could be your manager, or your manager’s manager. Or another engineer, who has been there for years and knows a lot of people. Explain the situation to them, what you need help with and ask if they have suggestions for who you should talk to.

Also, don’t limit yourself to people in the same profession as you. If you are an engineer, focus on engineers, but be open to also get feedback e.g. from Product Owners or designers. Their perspective is likely different, which could help you more than you imagine. Some of the best advice I have gotten did not come from an engineer, but a Product Owner.

You might be forwarded to another person who knows more. That’s fine, because each time you use the moment to also ask some question to the person and get some insights from them. Aim to have a final list of 3 to 5 people.

Reach out

If you don’t want to reach out to somebody because they seem awfully busy and you don’t want to steal their time, no worries. Asking somebody if they have time is not a binding contract - Every person senior enough to give you advice should also be senior enough to know whether they have time or not. They can decide on their own. And if they have time but you don’t ask, you will never know. Ask them.

If I can, I usually reach out via message. Asking in person can put some pressure on the other party to say “Yes” in the moment, even though they then figure out they can’t. Asking async seems more friendly to me. However, if you feel comfortable, you can also ask in person. In this case I would open by stating that I don’t need an answer now. I would briefly explain the situation and then follow-up with a message immediately afterwards.

An example reach-out can look like this:

Hey Alice, I am currently struggling with defining a growth plan for myself. My main issue is that I have only a limited view of what a Senior engineer is doing. Would you be fine with having a 30min coffee chat with me? I see you as an engineer who is respected by others, has a high level of technical skill and acts as a role model. Your experience could help me a lot. If you don’t have time in the next few weeks, that’s not a problem - Please don’t feel forced. If you can recommend any other people I should speak to, that would also be helping me a lot! Thanks!

Run the Interview

Once you get to the point where a coffee chat is planned, prepare for it. Nothing is worse than wasting time that you got gifted.

Since you are the person that wants to learn, aim to give a short introduction to your current context and then be an active listener. Remember, this is not about validating your views, it is about learning something new. You can treat it like a job interview, where the other person is the candidate. In the 30min you have, you aim to learn as much as possible.

Being prepared also means having a catalogue of questions prepared. You may not need them all, but if you have no questions, why have this meeting? Some questions I like are:

• What would you have done differently, if you look back now?
• How do you decide what is important and what is not?
• What do you currently struggle with most?
• What advice would you give somebody in my position?

Revisit and collect learnings

I heavily recommend taking notes during the interview. If you cannot do this for whatever reason, try to make them as soon as the talk ends. Write down everything that seems important.

After you have done a few of these interviews, take a look at your notes. Are there common patterns, things that everybody mentioned? Are there things that you feel respond to your current situation and could help you? Did any new questions pop up?

This reflection part is the most important step of the whole process. If you can’t translate what has been told to you into insights, reach out to somebody who could help you doing this and go through the notes together with them.

Remember that you are a different person in a different context - What your interview partners told you probably doesn’t translate 1:1 for you.

Conclusion

Facing unknowns can be hard, especially in your own career. Instead of just swimming with the flow, you can use the knowledge and experience of people surrounding you to find the direction and bridge gaps. Now, it’s your turn. Take 10 minutes today to think about who could help you see the next steps in your journey. Send that first message. Start that first conversation. Make it happen!