Taking a proactive approach to your own career allows you to assess your strengths and development areas, and start to navigate your professional journey with confidence and clarity. 

Let’s start by thinking about your personal career goals, before sitting down to write a personal development plan and working with your line manager to stay on track. 

Careers don’t have to be linear

A successful career doesn’t always mean having a CV that shows logical progression from a junior role to a senior one. Nor are individual contributors or managers limited in staying in those specific roles. When identifying future opportunities and development areas, do not limit yourself to the assumption that moving between being an individual contributor and manager is a permanent move, or that having a diverse background of roles is a negative.

Engineering is a multidisciplinary field. Non-linear career paths allow engineers to gain diverse skills and experiences, which can make them more versatile and adaptable.

Career development doesn’t always mean promotion

With an ever-growing plethora of languages, frameworks, technologies and concepts to grapple with, the variety of specialisms and skills to be gained across your career can be vast. Opportunities for learning and growth do not only come from taking the next role, or gaining seniority. Instead, opportunities can be found in new teams, or by broadening experience with an existing role. 

Focusing your development on specific areas and objectives and tying it to long term goals can set you up for success, rather than a series of short term optimizations to gain promotion.

Use a personal development plan

A personal development plan (PDP) is a structured framework used to assess skills and capabilities, set career and personal goals, and create a roadmap to achieve these goals. It is a strategic plan for personal growth and development. 

It can take many forms, but the key focus should be:

• Identified areas of development
• What the outcome of the development area will be
• The actions required to meet that goal 
• Monitoring the progress of actions

A development plan can be dynamic and evolve over time, but to ensure that the plan is building towards the right things it should set out a vision or statement that makes clear its reason for existing. This allows the plan to be regularly reviewed and assess if the stated objectives and goals are still supporting the desired outcome.

The role of the line manager in creating a plan

The role of a line manager during this process is to ensure that the plan is achievable and that progress is being made. Managers can hold individuals to account and set regular check-ins where they establish if the individual has adequate opportunity and focus on achieving the goals. They can provide valuable feedback in identifying things that meet aspirational targets. A simple structure for doing this should be:

• Guiding goal setting - Making sure goals are SMART (specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic, and time bound). A manager can work to shape the ambition of the development plan but also make it practical and achievable.
• Providing feedback - Line managers should be the ones to regularly review progress and hold individuals accountable to the set goals.
• Creating opportunities - A line manager should be identifying opportunities across a business or team that allow individuals to demonstrate their learning or support a goal. This can mean facilitating team moves or allocating work that provides the right level of exposure. 
• Mentoring and coaching - A line manager can help identify the right people to provide support and development against a chosen development area. 
• Facilitating training - Directing resources and material that support the learning objectives successfully.

The role of the learner in executing the plan

Individuals have a big part to play in creating an impactful personal development plan. Having clarity on the end goal, or a vision for development is a significant first step. Then break it down into achievable chunks.

Next, establish a timeframe. Is this a multi-stage plan to a long-term career goal, or a set of tasks to develop in a specific area? 

With a clear vision and timeframe, there are two remaining pieces before a plan can start to take shape:

1. Is the individual clear on what good looks like? 

If the vision is “I want to be an engineering manager”, is the learner clear on what this role involves? Is there a clear job description or expectations of the role, and is it fully understood? Who are people in the organization that can explain the role and requirements in more detail?

If the vision is more about expanding learning in a specific area, who are the people that do this well today, and how do they do it?

2. Has the individual documented their current skill level?

Performing a self-assessment on strengths and weaknesses should give you a good starting point. If the organization has an existing career framework for the current role, use this to rate performance against current expectations. Detail the level of experience that is currently being displayed and to what level this is being met. This very quickly creates a visual of areas that are already developed, and the areas to identify for improvement.

If there isn’t a career framework available, focus on:

• Technical competencies – such as depth of knowledge in language, technology or framework.
• Interpersonal skills – core competencies like communication, collaboration, or managing difficult conversations can be good starting places.
• Transferable skills – Problem solving, facilitation, and project management.

With this list of areas that cover the breadth of the current role, give each a rating. These ratings can also be shared with peers for further feedback and validation. 

Owning career development

Owning your career development is an empowering journey that leads to personal and professional fulfillment. For learners, taking charge of your career means actively seeking growth opportunities, embracing continuous learning, and aligning your goals with your passions. 

For managers, fostering an environment that supports and encourages career development is essential in cultivating a motivated and skilled team. 

Together, by prioritizing career development, both learners and managers can achieve remarkable success, drive innovation, and contribute to a thriving, dynamic workplace. In the end, owning your career development is the key to unlocking your full potential and achieving lasting success in your professional life.