Do you ever start a day wondering: “Is this what I am really meant to do for the next five years?” Of course, every employee has bad days at work. It might be due to a challenging project, unrealistic deadlines, or an unpleasant manager. However, experiencing a lack of motivation for some weeks or even months doesn’t mean that you have picked the wrong career path.
I’ve been working in tech for over 25 years. Being a developer, then a team lead, lead developer, and finally a technology leader, I have seen a lot of things over these years. I can assure you that professional growth doesn’t always mean progressing in your career. So here are 5 signs you have to consider for changing your career.
1. You Don’t See Yourself Improving
As soon as you enter your profession, you see all the challenges you have to face. You learn a lot and develop your skills. However, with the passing of time, you stop discovering anything new and do the same routine again.
For example, you have been a software developer for 5 years, working with the same application all the time. Now, you know the codebase perfectly and know how to deal with any issue associated with it. However, you understand that it’s becoming a routine and you cannot learn anything new. While the other developers in your company study cloud technologies, AI, and the latest trends in development.
On the one hand, you feel quite comfortable in your current position, but on the other hand, you understand that you are losing ground. Before making a decision, try to ask yourself if there are some ways to improve within your company. Perhaps, you can participate in some new projects or become a leader. If you check everything and still feel like you are at a dead end, maybe it’s high time for change.
2. You Feel Like Work Isn’t Interesting For You
There are no ideal professions. We all have meetings, administrative tasks, and projects we don’t like. However, what if you have lost the joy of doing your work?
For example, let’s imagine that you are a senior developer who worked very hard to become an engineering manager. You have succeeded and feel proud of yourself, but after some years of performance reviews, budget meetings, project planning, and similar tasks, you realize that you miss your days as a developer.
Actually, you aren’t dissatisfied with your company. You just understood that you are not interested in management anymore. It doesn’t mean that your experience was useless. On the contrary, your leadership skills can make you a much better technical leader or individual contributor. In short, sometimes, a change in your career means a change in your place within it.
3. Your Career Is No Longer in Tune With Your Life Goals
What was important for you at the age of 25 is completely different from what matters to you when you are 35, 45, or 55. At the early stages of your career, you may concentrate on getting a higher position and higher salary, developing your skills, and having promotions. However, after some time, you may understand that the balance has changed and now you value flexibility, interesting work, stability, and more time for your family. Actually, it’s quite normal that your priorities have changed.
Let’s suppose that you are a technology leader, leading several development teams. You have a nice salary and position, but your job includes a lot of travelling, evening and weekend work. Several years ago, this situation fitted you well, but now you want to have more freedom in your schedule and some time for your hobbies.
Perhaps you can consider consulting, teaching, technical writing, or any other profession that does not require so much responsibility. What you have to ask yourself is whether your career helps you to have the life you want to have. If your priorities have changed, maybe you have to change your career as well.
4. You’re Stressed All the Time
Stress is a natural thing in any profession, especially in tech, because of tight deadlines and a rapidly changing environment. However, you shouldn’t feel stress all the time. Otherwise, you risk burning out. Maybe you spend most of your evenings and weekends at work. Or you have to spend Sundays preparing for a new working week. Or you feel exhausted from your work and cannot do anything else.
Let’s imagine that you are a lead developer of a critical production application. Your team is understaffed, the deadlines are unrealistic, and you are always fixing urgent bugs and solving emergencies. You’ve discussed the problems with the leaders of your company several times, but nothing has changed. Finally, your stress affects your life negatively. It disturbs your sleep, hurts your relationships with people, and influences your health.
Before making a decision about changing your career, try to understand whether your stress is caused by your profession or the way you organize your work. Maybe you should find another company or another team to work with. However, if your profession requires you to have so much stress all the time, maybe you have to change your profession.
5. You Keep Dreaming About Something Different
Sometimes, the clearest sign of the necessity to change your career is that you constantly dream about something else. Maybe you researched different types of work, took some online courses, and imagine yourself working in some other profession. Then you start dreaming about these careers.
For example, you are an experienced developer who loves mentoring young people. You always volunteer to introduce new hires in your company, explain something technical to them, and help them to build their career paths. Eventually, you start dreaming about how nice it would be to teach or to train developers. Such dreams may be the sign that you have to change your career path.
However, being interested in some other type of work doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to change your job immediately. Instead, you can try to understand this sphere better. You can volunteer for some projects, communicate with people who work in this sphere, and experiment. Perhaps, you will find a new career path for yourself.
How to Act When You Want To Change Your Career?
Recognition of your desire to change your career is the first step. However, figuring out what to do next may be challenging, especially if you spent many years building your professional background. The good news is that changing your career path doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to forget about all your experience.
Your technical skills, leadership experience, communication skills, and ability to solve problems may be useful in many other spheres and jobs. And, actually, you don’t have to make a big step right away. You can start with understanding what is missing in your current career, search for some opportunities, and build a realistic plan. Remember that you don’t have to know where you want to go yet. It’s enough to know what to do next.
Ready To Move Your Career Forward?
If you feel stuck, are considering changing your career, or are looking for advice on what to do next, I can help you. We will figure out your goals, search for some opportunities, and build a realistic plan to move your career forward.
Learn more about career coaching and schedule a free consultation.