This post was borrowed from Coaching Programmers, an excellent blog by Bruce Taylor (author of Working with Programmers) that sadly hasn’t been updated recently.

She may ask to work on the next green fields project, or to work with a group of engineers that she respects, or to work on a project that uses the latest technology. These are the elements of a programmer’s career path: getting larger challenges, working with smarter people, and staying current with the next technologies. In comparison with these, titles, bonuses, and perks don’t mean that much.

Years ago I was working on a large, complex Java application for a medium-sized software company. In the middle of the project’s chaos, one of our engineers shone out like a beacon. She estimated tasks accurately, she always made her deadlines, her design was imaginative and efficient, her code was elegant, and her testing was impeccable. If they presented an MVP award for software, she would have won it unanimously.

After the project was released, our Director rewarded her with a large bonus, a corner office, and a hefty promotion to Project Manager. Within six weeks she had found a new job and turned in her notice of resignation. When I asked her why she was leaving she told me, “They rewarded me for doing my job well by taking me away from everything I love doing.”

Because programmers don’t usually think in terms of careers, they often get blown from job to job like a leaf in a gale, until they find themselves in a dead end job with nowhere to go, and wonder “how did I get here?” I like to encourage clients to think in terms of a trajectory of jobs that gets them to their ideal place. Each job may last months, years, or decades but it should contribute something to your experience and knowlege, and something important onto the resume.

So career planning is less a question of “What do you want to be doing in ten years?” than it is “What jobs do you need to pass through to get you to your ideal spot.”

Makes a difference, doesn’t it?