If You Feel Like You Are Falling Behind In Your Engineering Career, then Read This

I feel like I'm falling behind in my career, but I always remind myself that everyone has their own timeline.

Photo by Kiyoshi on Unsplash

As I age, each birthday becomes less of a celebration and more of a reflection on

"What have I accomplished? Have I accomplished what I set myself a year back?"

If you are wondering, I didn't just have my birthday. 

Each time I reflect on myself, I always feel insecure and fear.

Never have any reflections like, "I feel good about the current state of my financial and career status."

If you are feeling the same as me, you are not alone! Most of us feel behind when we reflect on our lives, but I want to always remind myself and you that you are not. 

Why do we feel this way?

We naturally compare ourselves to others, especially peers in similar professional fields. This is normal from an evolutionary perspective. In the era of hunters and gatherers, we wanted to fit into the group and be accepted, but we also needed to be "fit" and "valuable," or else we would be banished from the group. This subconscious mindset has inherited us through generations and causes us to be self-judgemental so it won't result in societal disappointment.

Everyone has their timeline, and we are more self-critical and self-cynical in evaluating ourselves than how we are perceived externally. 

Just because you weren't promoted to senior by 30 doesn't mean you are behind in life.

Just because you didn't get to purchase a house by 30 doesn't mean you will never be able to purchase a house.

Just because you didn't get a 500K TC before 30 doesn't mean you are a loser.

As you grow older, society or so-called "resistance" tries to break your identity and self-worth through the media to entrench your career as a source of your personal worth. Being perceived as behind in your career advancements raises questions about one's ability, choice, or overall value to society.

You must resist succumbing to the belief that society's expectations and pressures are equivalent to your values. 

Not All Timelines are Equal

If you didn't make it to senior/staff or business when you were 30, does that mean you can never make it anymore?

The media has tricked us into thinking that we need to follow Mark Zuckerberg's life or else there will be no opportunity in our lives.

Let's look at some statistics to overturn that statement. 

The average age of a corporate Vice President (VP) of a Fortune 500 company is around 51. According to Forbes, the average successful entrepreneur founded their company at around 42. The vast majority of these businesses are small businesses without any intention of growing large. How about high-tech founders? The average falls in the early forties. 

In addition, younger founders are different from the norm. They are the exception.

Barrack Obama became president at the age of 47, while Trump became the president of the United States at the age of 70. Does that mean Trump is behind in his life as Barrack Obama. 

For the longest time, Matthew McConaughey was behind in his acting career. He got into a low-budget movie or did some rom-com with Jennifer Lopez.

But for some reason, in his late 40s, something changed, and he got an opportunity to become one of the best leading actors in Hollywood. The Wolf of Wall Street, True Detective, and Interstellar, all in 12 months. Then he got a role in the Dallas Boys Club, which earned him the Oscar for the Man's Performance of the Year. 

The moral of the story? He has redefined his career and his life, from being so-called "behind" to the frontline and successful in the span of 1 year, but that is not in his 20s nor in his 30s, but in his late 40s.

It took Carlos Arguelas, a senior staff engineer at Google, 12+ years to become a senior engineer. Within the span of senior to senior staff, it took him the same number of years to get promoted 3 times to senior staff engineer. 

Does that mean he is behind in his career journey? 

No, his career journey is so inspiring and unique that no other engineer in the world can replicate it. 

The Lies Behind Self-Made

There is a flaw in how society measures success.

I've had a family friend who made it to Forbes 30 under 30 at 25 for creating a startup that helped create boards behind Gojek motorcycle for ads. His mother was very proud of him and sent the news regarding her son to all mothers around town in Indonesia.

That message landed on my mom's What's App direct message, and as a result, my mom kept telling me how successful and how great that person was able to self-made into Forbes 30 under 30.

I was genuinely happy for him, but I also questioned the word "self-made."

Really. 

He was born into a rich family and is one of the biggest oil distributors in Indonesia. For generations, his family has been closely connected to all the big corporations in Indonesia. His family has close connections with Gojek and other big companies that can equip him to consolidate contracts across big corporations in Indonesia to post ads and support his billboard startup.

A couple of years ago, Forbes named Kylie Jenner the youngest self-made billionaire. The catch? She was born into a rich family with a high media distribution channel under her when she was young that could help her create a billion-dollar makeup business.

Does that mean she doesn't deserve the notable recognition for creating the makeup line? That is not true either.

How about the people who were the first-generation college graduates of the family, who got a white-collar job and bought a house with their own hard-earned money for the family? Is that person also equally impressive as Kylie?

What is my point? We all have privileges and disadvantages.

Don't envy someone who manages to get promoted under 2-3 years to Senior or Staff Engineer. Because they have advantages based on their background or life circumstances that weren't told from the face of the media.

If you are feeling behind in your career, have you ever considered the people you are comparing to, who may have some extra support?

Work on your Own Timeline

Stan Lee, the creator of Marvel, was on the brink of collapse in 1996.

However, Lee said a great transition was made by Time Burton's 1989 Batman and the following massive sales of DC's comic book The Death of Superman (1992). He noticed that superheroes occupied a larger slice of the mass cultural consciousness. He continued to form connections in Hollywood, hoping to follow DC's success on the big screen. The rest of the success is in the history afterward.

Stan Lee's story shows that you are never too late to hit it big as long as you are keeping with your own timeline.

What that means is, as an engineer, work on something that makes you impressively valuable.

Don't get discouraged by fast promotions; instead, focus on honing each skill set to be irreplaceable in the company.

Overall, the title is just a proxy defined by your company's HR departments. What matters is the skillset.

Consider what people want to perceive you as in the next five years. 

When your name is mentioned to the team and the department, what will they think about you?

"I want to work on my communication skills so that in the next five years, people will perceive me as an engineer who is also a good communicator."

"I want to work on my writing so that the design docs and proposal I wrote can immensely influence the team."

"I want to work on my technical skills so that people will think about me in their head when they cannot solve technical problems."

These skill sets require time to master; that title, compensation, will follow through.

If you read this far, this is what you need to know:

1. Don't feel insecure about other people's successes because all systems of measuring success are unfair.

2. Everyone has their own timeline. It is not a singular dimension.

3. Focus on creating irreplaceable skills instead of value perceived by the proxy of the society.