Should you stay if your current software role is good enough?
Overcoming the hurdle of leaving a “good enough” job.
In the first part of this series on whether to stay in your current software role or find a new one, I explored how to identify the main causes of dissatisfaction and make a decision about moving on. Many of you requested a deeper dive into the very real hurdle of fearing regret over leaving a "good enough" role.
If you understand why you're dissatisfied but still worry about regretting your decision to leave, then keep reading - this article is for you.
Identifying the “Good Enough” Role
During my career in software, I’ve worked with many engineers who knew it was time to move on from their current role at a company, but have remained in the same role for months or sometimes even years. They had very good reasons to want to move on, such as:
Being vastly underpaid while overworked
Having an unavailable or unresponsive manager
Feeling consistent boredom with the company’s mission and products
Lacking opportunities to step into better-fitting responsibilities for career progression
Wanting to work with new and more exciting languages, frameworks, and tech stacks
If there’s no clear path to resolve even one of these reasons, it’s almost certainly time to move on. But this does not guarantee that you won’t experience intense fear, uncertainty and self-doubt, especially if you’ve been with the company for several years.
It's reasonable to feel paralyzed by such a big and uncertain decision. But it's always possible to move forward into something that's an exceptionally great fit for you.
Breaking Free and Moving into the Great Role
So what’s a viable way of moving forward? By framing your current job and the process of finding a great fitting one clearly in your mind, one small, achievable step at a time.
Step 1 - Identify What's Keeping You Stuck
Recognize that you're experiencing challenging emotions and circumstances around the uncertainty of leaving your current role, and allow this to be an okay reality for now. Give yourself permission to wrestle with these feelings directly. It doesn't make you inferior to acknowledge your fear of an undefined future in your career. You don't yet know the details of your great fitting new role, but you'll start a deliberate journey and create your future in due time.
Step 2 - Brainstorm New Role Ideas
Don’t worry about looking at job boards yet or talking to recruiters. Begin by slowly brainstorming new ideas to replace your current role that you notice excite you. Spend 15-20 minutes daydreaming about a new potential day-to-day for yourself. What don’t you get to do in your “good enough” role that you really want to? Visualize it and write down all ideas that come to mind.
As you freely explore what you will be excited to work on, you’ll begin to build confidence that you can move towards something much better instead of just holding onto something that’s “good enough.”
If you’re having a hard time brainstorming ideas that you’re excited about, ask a few people you talk with frequently and who know you well to share the kinds of professional topics they’ve heard you get excited about over the last year.
If you struggle to brainstorm, ask a few people who know you well to share the professional topics they've seen you get excited about over the last year. And if this step feels unproductive, I'm here to guide you in discovering new software career possibilities. Feel free to book some time with me.
Step 3 - Identify Your Best New Role
Finally, refine your list of ideas into something more concrete that’s easier to envision yourself in. You’ll start connecting your ideas to real job opportunities at specific companies.
To make this easier, I've created an assessment that walks you through refining your list of new role ideas into a list of companies with job opportunities you'll feel confident and excited to apply to.
Use my Ideal Software Role assessment to explore:
Company missions and problems - What kinds of missions or problems energize you most?
Products and industries - What products and industries energize you most, and which ones should you avoid?
Size and stage of business - What size company and how mature does it need to be?
Set your title and level of pay - What kind of title and level of pay are you looking for?
Technologies that matter - What kind of technologies do you want to work with most?
State your values - What are your most important values that you want your next employer to share?
As well as identify other foundational aspects important to you for your next role…
Have a look at my Ideal Software Role assessment, and then make a copy of the assessment that you can fill out.
Getting Better Results with Coaching
Sometimes, you need more than just working individually through these steps to make progress. As engineers, we’re used to attempting to solve many difficult problems on our own. But often, we need someone else to brainstorm and solve our most challenging career problems with.
I’ve helped many engineers move beyond this hurdle and I’d love the opportunity to coach you through it too. We’ll do that together by helping you let go of your “good enough” role so that we can work together to identify the kind of role(s) that you can’t wait to transition to.
I’d like to invite you to explore how much clarity we can uncover for you with a free 1 hour coaching session with me.
Before our session, I encourage you to get as far as you can through my assessment. It’ll give you a significant head start reaching a better understanding of what you do and don’t want out of your next role. And then we’ll pick it up from there during our coaching session.
I hope that with the help of my assessment and working together in coaching, we can move you beyond your current "good enough" role and into one that fits you exceptionally well.
Cheers to moving beyond "good enough"!
Head Coach and Founder @ Refactor Group
Great words, thank you so much!