The Dreaded Impact-Effort Edge
To recap the two previous posts exploring this subject, The 2.5 Ways of Career Development, and The Golden Triangle of Work, everything you do falls somewhere on the following triangle.
Today I want to talk about the space familiar to all software engineers (and likely many others outside the field), the Dreaded Impact-Effort edge. I’m talking about the unenviable position many early-career engineers find themselves in, of doing all the work, and getting none of the credit/recognition/rewards. Of feeling under-appreciated, taken for granted, of feeling like your career’s stalled and you don’t know what to do about it. Of feeling invisible.
I’ve encountered a lot of folks who’ve felt that way over the years. They tended to concern themselves with high-impact, high-effort work, and didn’t think through how visible that work was to the layers of management above. Then they wondered why they didn’t get the credit they deserved, or didn’t get the promotion they wanted.
Well… if your visibility is poor, what do you expect?
The problem, I think, is our personality. I can’t speak to other professions, but software engineering tends to attract introverts…
