Here’s more unsolicited advice to my fellow software engineers anxiously grinding to climb the technical ladder. You may not agree with all of it, but I still invite you to reflect.
Stay Focused and Be Patient
Stop treating your career like a sprint trying to climb faster than your friends. True seniority requires experience acquired through sweat and tears. There’s also a massive luck component - right company, right team, right projects, right timing when you interview. Focus on simple principles like learning something new everyday, constantly providing value and being a teammate people actually want to work with.
Luck plays a huge role, no doubt. But patience gives luck more chances to find you. When you stay focused on learning and delivering, you create more surface area for good things to happen. You build relationships that pay off years later. You develop expertise that compounds. You ship projects that people remember.
The beautiful thing is that it usually works out in the end. I turned 40 this year and when I look at my connections from 15 or 20 years ago, they’re all doing well. Some hit the jackpot and retired early. The rest are working at great companies or building their own (some happier than others doing so).