As I embark on the journey towards the next phase of my career, I wanted to take some time to think about what I want my next job to be. I’ve never really had a full sense of where I see my dev career going, and I don’t have a specific dream job or dream company, which makes this harder, but also more important, because I don’t want to end up in another job that I end up hating because I didn’t realize that it’s not something I wanted.
Here’s what I came up with as some things I’d like to see in my next job:
The Company:
- Industry — Tech. Whether that’s “tech” or “-tech”, I want to work for a company where technology is the core of what they do, not just a small segment of the business.
- Size — Mid-size. Not so small that there aren’t enough people to do the work, but not so big that I don’t recognize the people in the office (and I don’t mean that I want to know everyone by name and know their life stories — I know most offices are too big for that — but I want to recognize most of the faces I see every day).
- Perks — I don’t have specific perks that I need (although really, either a treadmill in the office or free/discounted gym membership would be great so that I don’t have to keep running outside in the sub-freezing), but I do want to work for a company that provides the things its employees want and adjusts what they provide based on employee needs (for example, if I’m the only one using the gym benefits, I’d be okay with them taking that away and offering healthy snacks in the kitchen instead).
The Job:
- Tech Stack — Ideally, I’d like to work on a React/Node stack. That’s my area of expertise. But I’m certainly open to other options if it’s something that seems interesting and I’m given the time to learn it on the job. I’m always up for learning new things, but I would love to have help and support during that learning process.
- Mentorship — I really would loves someone to help guide me through my work, including making sure I get set up okay, checking in with me during my projects to make sure I’m doing okay and producing quality code, and help me navigate any road blocks I encounter. I’d also like the opportunity to eventually mentor newer devs.
- Variety— After having been on one very boring project for a long time and not having anywhere to go when I moved off that project, variety in my work is very important to me. I’d like to be at a company where either I’m working on a variety of projects or where there are a variety of projects being worked on by different team and I have the ability to switch teams if that seems like it will work better for me.
The Future:
- Position/Personal Growth— yes please! I want a position with either a) examples of how people have grown from this position to other positions within the company, or b) a clear timeline on how the position will grow. Or both. But I definitely want to know coming in that I am expected to grow, and what the expectations for growth are.
- Company Vision — This probably could have also gone under the company umbrella. I want to work for a company that knows where it is going and how it plans to get there. I want to know that the company has put some thought into their business plan and future growth and that they want employees to be invested in the growth.
- Flexible Scheduling — This is present as much as future, but could also potentially be a bigger issue in the future. I want to know that my company and my job can handle my scheduling issues, and that if further scheduling issues come up, they’re still going to be willing to work with me. I want to put in the time to get the work done, but sometimes my schedule can be difficult due to factors outside my control, and I want to know that whatever job I have, they’re always going to be willing to work with me on that.
I’m hoping that having this list helps guide me towards the right jobs during the course of my search. I know that I probably won’t find a job that “checks all the boxes,” but having some idea of what I want will definitely help me look at a job description and decide if it could be a good fit for me.
My goal for my next job is to find something I love. This list will help me get there.
