#7 Growth Zones for Engineers š±
How to Spot and Activate Growth Zones for Your Career Development
Have you ever noticed that when you're working on an extremely challenging problem, some sneaky thoughts creep in, making you question your knowledge and skills? But once you solve it, you feel enlightened, as if rays of knowledge and experience are shining on you. You realise how much you've learned from the journey, despite the hardships and challenges of reaching the end goal. While you might not want to repeat the exact scenario, you're grateful for the knowledge and wisdom you gained from it.
These experiences are incredibly valuable, and they are what I call Growth Zones. In this post, Iām going to explain what a Growth Zone is, how to find them, and how to leverage them for your career development.
First, letās start with a definition.
Growth Zone: An area where your skills and knowledge are put to a high test for a specific period of time; once passed, it rewards you with immense knowledge and expertise.
Your Career is a Blend of Grey and Growth Zones
As engineers go through their career journeys, they will encounter a series of Grey Zones and Growth Zones. A Grey Zone is an area where an engineer performs their work duties with minimal friction on their current knowledge and skills, gaining small incremental value. For example, engineers may already know how to version their source code (i.e., Git), but they can still learn new development workflows when working with different orgs (e.g. GitFlow) and might casually pick up new Git ātips and tricksā over time.
Grey Zones are naturally common on a day-to-day basis, especially more for junior engineers, as they often receive clear guidance on the tasks they need to perform. Some examples include:
Picking up a well-defined (programming) task.
Refactoring an existing codebase (guarded with tests!).
Documenting existing assets built by the dev team.
However, regardless of the level, Grey Zones are common among all engineers. A senior engineer might view āwriting a design document for a new featureā as a Grey Zone. The key edge that high-performing engineers have is knowing that if they want to take their skills to the next level, they must proactively seek out and engage with Growth Zones whenever possible. The more they tap into these Growth Zones, the faster they level up in their careers, both technically and professionally (and ultimately get promoted). This process helps you stretch beyond your comfort zone and gradually build the confidence to operate at the next level.
Once engineers go through this uncomfortable test for the first time, theyāll soon realise that these Growth Zones have now become Grey Zones at their new level.
You can jump in Grey Zone š¼ and make a double jump in Growth Zone! ā«
Letās take an example: Suppose you and your team are deciding who should lead the development of a new payment service to be integrated into your software. Who should take on this task? A senior person might seem like the obvious choice. However, is there someone who is "just a tiny bit" below a senior role and is actively seeking out a Growth Zone? If the answer is yes, then by giving that person the opportunity to step into this Growth Zone (with minimal support if needed), youāve successfully developed another senior engineer within the team. Nice!
For my fellow programmers, its something like:
void assign_project( Team team ) {
// activate_growth_zone( team ); // TODO: Uncomment this.
Experience experience = finish_project( team );
grow( team , experience );
}
Once youāve captured and activated this Growth Zone at your current level, the next time you encounter it, it becomes a Grey Zone to you. Because youāve already extended your knowledge and skills in the first time by leading this type of work, the second time will be relatively easier and involve less friction to you (similar to Git example I mentioned earlier!).
Following this proactive approach to capturing Growth Zones is what makes an engineer stand out in their work. The path may sometimes be difficult, but the rewards far exceed the challenges.
An engineer who searches for Growth Zones and activates them, is the embodiment of what I call the Proactive Engineering Mindset.
Careful of the Meteor Zones! āļø
Now, what if a junior engineer takes on a much more challenging taskāone that is typically considered a Growth Zone for senior engineers?
Thatās what I call a Meteor Zone āļø
Meteor Zone: An area where your skills and knowledge are put to a much higher test for a longer period of time; once passed, it significantly rewards you with immense knowledge and expertise.
Examples are; an early-career engineer joining a startup as a tech lead, or a recent graduate starting their own company, and so on.
Meteor Zones are quite different from Growth Zones. They are notably rare, involve higher risks, and are slightly more attainable by senior engineers than junior engineers. However, there are no golden rules for this. We have all seen talented engineers start their own companies right after college (or even dropouts!) and build wonderful products that weāre using up till today.
Now why did I mention this Meteor Zone? Two reasons:
To distinguish between low-to-medium-risk opportunities and high-risk ones.
To highlight that there are opportunities for engineers to level up in their careers, and then there are other opportunities to pursue a slightly different career path.
I have some thoughts on Meteor Zones (which I might cover in a future post). However, I do share great respect for those who manage to shoot down the imposter syndrome and take on a completely different career journey, regardless of their stage in life.
Now that weāve drawn the separation between a Growth Zone and a Meteor Zone, letās go back to the Growth Zone, as it is our main topic.
How can I find these āGrowth Zonesā?
The key element here is to be proactive. You should be intentional about which zones you want to activate and which ones you can skip (or even better, delegate to less experienced engineers for their own growth).
Should you refactor some part in the codebase or squash an impactful bug?
Is there a pain point in your teamās workflow? Can you do something about it?
Does your team need help with figuring out the tech stack?
How can you help the business grow?
Now one reasonable question you might ask is:
What if I canāt find any Growth Zone in my work? What should I do?
Thatās where Managers come in.
Your manager has a wider lens on the problems that need to be solved. They can see most, if not all, of the Growth Zones out there. When you proactively offer your services or express your interest in taking on new initiatives, you create an opportunity for them to match you with the best available Growth Zone they can find. Itās like asking for a city map to go to your friendās house, but instead they share with you their location on Google Mapsāhow better is this!
Conclusion
Your career is a blend of Grey and Growth Zones (with maybe a tiny Meteor too?). Knowing which is which will give you a clear perspective on where to focus in order to further develop your skills and knowledge. Finding and activating Growth Zones requires a proactive approach. Your manager can be your best guide, helping you identify a high-quality Growth Zone that will elevate your skill set. At the same time, theyāll recognise that you, too, are a Growth Zone, contributing to their success as a highly growing manager. What a win-win! š„
Key Takeaways
Grey Zones are great for your role. Growth Zones are great for your next role.
Finding Growth Zones requires a proactive mindset.
Managers are your best allies; they have the map to Growth Zones.
Well done.
Shared with my team of Low-Code Devs and Engineers š really insightful!