How to Unlock Your Career Growth: The Professional Development Trifecta [Guide]
How to Develop New Skills, Take on New Responsibilities, and Negotiate a Higher Salary—All While Building a Meaningful Career
All engineers want to progress, yet many lack a clear career and professional development framework.
It isn’t easy to progress when you don’t have a systematic approach to professional development.
Over many conversations I have had with engineers, I’ve realized there is a collection of common themes engineers mention when talking about career development and professional development:
They all want to develop new skills.
They all want to step into new responsibilities.
They all want a higher salary.
This is what I call The Professional Development Trifecta. If you want steady progress in your career, you must systematically approach these three dimensions: Skills, Responsibilities, and Salary.
This implies that:
You learn how to develop new skills.
You learn to take on new responsibilities—They are the doors to fast career growth.
You learn to negotiate your salary.
In this post, I’ll introduce you to the Professional Development Trifecta and explain how it can help you address your professional development in a more structured and clear manner.
I’ll address how to make progress in your career, how to take on new responsibilities and uncover hidden opportunities, and how to ask for a higher salary. I’ll share with you how I got a 40% raise and some thoughts about how to negotiate a raise.
Towards the end of the article, I’ll also explain why focusing on professional development is not enough. If you want to have a satisfying and impactful career path, it would be best to consider working in other areas.
So, grab a cup of coffee or tea and a comfy chair, and read until the end!
TL;DR
Tip #1: The more skilled you are, the more impactful you can be. The more impactful you are, the more you can get paid.💡
Tip #2: Learn to identify problems you are interested in solving and that could have a great impact on the team or the organization. Propose solutions, implement them, and let the impact follow. It is one of the easiert ways to propel forward your career faster. 💡
Tip #3: You are paid not for the job you do but for the impact you create; when you make a meaningful impact, asking for more money becomes easier.💡
Tip #4: Do impactful work and then ask for money. Don’t expect inmediate raises, be open to negotiation. Don’t lose your happiness and sanity running after money. Define what’s enough for you.💡
Tip #5 Professional development is the tip of the iceberg. Your career's most significant impact and satisfaction will come from your personal and social development. Don’t forget to work on them.💡
How to Make Progress
Progressing in your career is easy once you understand how it works.
To do your job properly, you need a set of skills that you can acquire by learning theory or practicing. The more skilled you are, the more impactful you can be. The more impactful you are, the more you can get paid.
Theory vs Practice
The art of professional development lies in knowing when the theory is necessary and when the practice is needed.
Theory speeds up the practice, and the practice informs what you need to learn from theory.
For example, you may have taken a course on how to fly a plane, but if you have never actually flown one, well, you don’t know how to fly a plane.
Don’t fool yourself; you only know the theory. But also, don’t expect me to let you fly a plane if you don’t know the theory. You’ll crash if I let you get up on the plane.
It’s a matter of balance between theory and practice.
Learn by Doing
You must also know you won’t learn some skills until you practice them.
For example, reading books doesn’t teach you to lead a team. Yes, the theory helps—a lot. But the reality is that you learn to lead a team by leading it, not by reading about it.
That’s why you need to learn how to step into new responsibilities. Trying or acquiring new responsibilities is how you move forward and learn new skills.
If you develop skills and acquire responsibilities that allow you to have a significant impact on your team and company, money will come easily. You need to be patient and assertive about it. That’s why it’s also important that you learn how to negotiate.
Tip #1: The more skilled you are, the more impactful you can be. The more impactful you are, the more you can get paid.💡
A Question for You: What skill have you been hesitant to practice that could significantly impact your career if you mastered it?
1. How to Develop New Skills
To develop new skills, you must first know which skills you need to develop.
Companies make available Career Progression Frameworks for engineers to help them with this; they define the skills they think you may need to develop to do your job properly. If you work at a company with a good career progression framework, I encourage you to review it and ask questions about it. This can lead to powerful insights into the most valued skills at your workplace.
However, such Career Progression Frameworks can sometimes feel too abstract and not helpful at all. That’s why you shouldn’t rely on them completely.
Ultimately, you are responsible for your professional development. Own it, and don’t wait for a company to tell you which skills you need to develop.
This is what it looks like to own your professional development:
Identify what’s expected from you. If you’re unsure which skills to focus on, identify what’s expected from you in your current role and commit to learning those skills. Sometimes, it is as simple as asking your manager for feedback or asking them, “What do you expect from me?” Don’t be afraid of opening the conversation.
Learn to create clarity. If you feel lost, then your job is to get unlost. Do whatever you need to do, but learn to create clarity. Creating clarity usually starts by understanding yourself and what you want. If you don’t know, try different things and pay attention. Eventually, you’ll figure it out; don’t settle.
Ask for help. Seek mentors and more senior people. The problems you are facing today are problems that probably other people already solved. Don’t suffer in silence.
A Question for You: What’s one skill you could focus on right now to meet or exceed expectations in your current role?
2. How to Take On New Responsibilities
Most of the time, engineers who say they are bored or want new challenges are actually saying they want to do something new or take on new responsibilities.
Anyone wanting to progress in their career will eventually need to take on new responsibilities.
For example, if you are a data engineer who has been working on building ETLs for a couple of years, at some point, you would like to try something different. This may imply:
Leading a new team
Working on a new product
Mentoring other engineers
Researching and writing about a topic of your interest
Discussing and implementing new architectures
and so on…
You develop new skills and deepen your skills by being exposed to new challenges and new responsibilities.
There are many ways to step into new responsibilities, but success lies in knowing which approach is most helpful in a given situation. At its core, taking on new responsibilities is about identifying opportunities—chances to create value for yourself and your company.
Identifying opportunities often starts with the ability to spot problems that need solving.
Uncovering Hidden Opportunities
One of the simplest ways to uncover hidden opportunities is by talking to your manager.
Try approaching them with something like this:
Hi [Manager’s Name],
I’m interested in trying new things and taking on additional challenges.
I was wondering if there’s anything I could help with beyond my current responsibilities?
For example, I’m skilled at [X, Y, Z] (or I’d like to explore [X, Y, Z]).Are there any opportunities or problems where I could add value?
Easy. Right? Yet, not too many engineers dare to do this. This is, sadly, an uncommon trait among engineers. Engineers would propel their careers faster by focusing on this kind of proactivity.
Managers usually have greater visibility and context. They can open new doors easily if you are willing to ask. Don’t expect them to reach to you. Instead, reach out to them. Opportunities are lost when people don’t ask for them.
When I led a data engineering department of more than 70 people, I was highly interested in people wanting to step into new responsibilities. Part of my job was to support people who reached out to me, offering their help. This would usually allow me to create tailored opportunities for them and help people take on new responsibilities—e.g., some became mentors, managers, and staff engineers.
You don’t have anything to lose by asking. You have everything to lose if you don’t ask. But also, don’t expect that managers solve your problems and create opportunities for you.
If they don’t know where you could add value, it is up to you to find out where you can help. That’s when learning to spot opportunities and problems becomes handy.
Spotting Problems and Opportunities
You spot problems and opportunities by building a 360-view of what is happening around you.
Everyone has problems they want to solve. You need to identify the ones you are interested in solving that may greatly impact the team or the organization.
This is how you do it:
Talk to people. Reach out to people and ask them what they are working on and what challenges they are facing. Everyone has problems they want to solve.
Learn to prioritize. Learn to identify what’s a problem and what’s a nice opportunity. Focus on the problems first and then proceed with “nice opportunities.” Things that “could kill the business” are a priority. If you need clarity, use the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize.
Make proposals. When you have a list of problems and opportunities, reach out to your manager—or anyone who approves your work—and propose potential solutions. I can guarantee that if you are consistent enough, your proposal will get approved at some point. That’s how you can create a gap for yourself and take on new responsibilities supporting your professional development.
A Personal Story
I learned the art of spotting problems and opportunities merely by accident.
At some point early in my career, I was hired as a Data Analyst. However, during the first week of work, the company's CTO told me that the recruiting company had made a mistake. He told me, "We don’t need a Data Analyst. We need a Data Engineer. If you want the job, learn how to use Grafana, Scala, and the framework for collecting metrics we have in place.”
But he also told me, “We may need a data analyst in the future. If, during the first month, you can show us what you can do, we can probably hire you and someone else for the data engineering position. But you are on your own. You need to figure out what to do. Would you be interested in that?” I accepted his proposal.
After my conversation with the CTO, I reached out to each department head and told them. “Hey, I’m a data analyst. I’m new here, and I want to understand what you are working on and see how, from the data team, we can help you.”
Surprisingly, everyone had things to share with me. They would say, “It would be nice if we could predict this or that… It would be nice to build a dashboard… or a model to…”
To me, this was gold! I needed use cases to justify my work, and I was able to put together a list of them by my third week there. I also did some quick preliminary analysis that showed that some of the things they asked were doable.
That’s how I managed to stay at my job. I also made them hire a data engineer to care for what I was supposed to do when I got there.
Tip #2: Learn to identify problems you are interested in solving and that could have a great impact on the team or the organization. Propose solutions, implement them, and let the impact follow. It is one of the easiert ways to propel forward your career faster. 💡
A Question for You: What’s one problem or opportunity in your current workplace that excites you and could allow you to take on new responsibilities?
3. How to Negotiate a Higher Salary
There are three common mistakes I see engineers make when asking for a higher salary:
They ask for crazy amounts.
They ask for more money without having created a measurable impact.
They want to get immediate raises.
The key to unlocking a higher salary is understanding how organizations work:
Tip #3: You are paid not for the job you do but for the impact you create; when you make a meaningful impact, asking for more money becomes easier.💡
Do Meaningful Work and Then Ask for Money
Throughout my career, I’ve asked for several raises. They all follow a simple pattern: I do impactful work and then ask for money.
This is how you do it:
Spot problems and create new solutions.
Create measurable impact.
Ask for a higher salary.
How I Got a 40% Raise
The most significant salary increase in my career was a 40% increase.
This happened at a consultant company where I was initially hired as a data engineer. In my first six months there, I was able to take on some additional responsibilities, and then I transitioned to a management position.
After the first six months, I contacted the CEO, showcasing everything I had accomplished and voicing my desire to get a higher salary. There was a minor pushback, but we found some common ground, and I got my 40% increase.
It was really easy, given he recognized everything I had created in such a short amount of time. When people can recognize your impact, asking for salary raises goes smoothly.
Learn to Negotiate
When I asked for my 40% increase, I knew I would get some pushback. After all, I was asking for “a crazy amount of money.”
When I told the CEO about the rise, he said, “Are you crazy!? Do you know what the average yearly salary increase is? Not even 10%!”
Of course, I understood where he was coming from; I had asked for a lot. But I was prepared…
This is what I told him:
“I understand I’m asking for a lot. That’s why I don’t plan to get this raise inmediatly. I’m open to negotiating a time frame that would be comfortable for both of us.
I consider I have had a great impact on the team. I did X, Y, and Z. I was able to achieve A, B, and C. I have created great impact and now I would like to get a salary adjusment. I’m looking for a 40% increase.If you don’t feel comfortable with this, please tell what do you need me to do so we can get that 40% increase. We can define some metrics and work on them over the next following 6 months and then we can talk about my increase.”
What do you think?”
After some back-and-forth, he recognized that I had created great stuff and agreed to the raise. He also liked the idea of giving me the raise not immediately but within a reasonable time frame.
We had the salary conversation in January. He mentioned he could make it happen if I had a 20% increase by May and the other 20% by October. I accepted his proposal and got a 40% raise.
As I said earlier, asking for salary raises goes smoothly when people can recognize your impact.
Most importantly, it doesn’t matter what impact you have created; always be open to rejection and negotiation. Don’t feel entitled to anything, for it will get you nowhere.
First, do impactful work and then ask for money. Then, when you ask for a raise, you can back up your request with numbers.
If you ask for a large amount of money, don’t ask for it immediately. Be open to negotiating and hearing what the other party has to say.
If you get pushback, ask the other party what they need to reach your number and establish a follow-up plan. This will give you insights into what you can do better.
That’s how you negotiate a salary raise.
Define What Is Enough
Eventually, you will realize that a higher salary is not the answer. You’ll learn to appreciate other things, such as work-life balance, flexibility, workplace culture, etc.
Be careful when you ask for a higher salary. More money usually brings more responsibilities, sometimes negatively impacting work-life balance and happiness. More money is not equal to more happiness.
Be aware, often, that the more you earn, the more you spend. So, the last thing you want is getting caught out in this cycle of the more you earn, the more you spend, the less happier you are.
Learn to determine how much money is enough. This is how I did it:
I prioritized work-life balance over money. At some point in my career, I took a lower-income job. I knew I could make more money, but I was willing to reject high-paying jobs for major flexibility and work-life balance.
I optimized my spending to live on less than half of my salary. Aiming for higher salaries usually comes with a price. You need to give away more of your time and more of your sanity. To me, the answer is not about earning more but about spending less. I try not to get caught up in a luxury lifestyle that I could only afford if I sacrificed my time and sanity.
I always have six months of salary savings. If things get ugly, I try always to have six months of salary savings. I will always try to choose happiness and work-life balance over money. A six-month salary savings is a good safety net you can rely on if it gets tough.
Tip #4: Do impactful work and then ask for money. Don’t expect inmediate raises, be open to negotiation. Don’t lose your happiness and sanity running after money. Define what’s enough for you.💡
A Question for You: What measurable impact have you created recently that could support your case for a higher salary?
4. The Next Levels
At some point, life will throw you some curve balls. Whether you burn out, lose your motivation, or face any other personal situation, you’ll understand professional development is just the tip of the iceberg.
At some point, you will transition from traditional metrics like titles, salaries, etc., to deeper and more meaningful metrics like how good you feel about yourself, your relationships, and your life.
You will face big questions, such as: What do I want for my career? Who’s the person I want to be? How do I want to show up in the world? You will understand that a sense of progress comes only from our definition of progress. What “progress” means to some may not mean the same to others.
You also will understand that your career's most significant impact and satisfaction will come from your personal and social development.
So, whether you are already there or not, here’s how I think about these three kinds of development.
Professional Development. It’s about developing your career. You focus on developing skills that fit your job, acquiring new responsibilities, and occasionally aiming for higher salaries.
Personal Development is about discovering who you are as a person, understanding your emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and beliefs, aligning your work with your values, and challenging yourself.
Social Development. It’s about deciding how you want to show up in the world. It’s about understanding that you are not alone and that another person's suffering is also your suffering. It’s about empathy, compassion, interdependence, and cooperation.
If you are still on the first level, I invite you to explore the other levels. They will unlock not only your career prospects but also your life, guiding you towards a more meaningful and satisfying life.
Tip #5 Professional development is the tip of the iceberg. Your career's most significant impact and satisfaction will come from your personal and social development. Don’t forget to work on them.💡
If you don’t know where to start, please keep reading The Utopian Engineering Society. We aim to cover those topics in this.
Or, if you want to start somewhere else, you can also start with any personal development and spiritual books.
Here are some books I think might be a fit for you in case you are open to exploration:
The following are not affiliate links.
Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day by Jay Shetty
Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society by Thich Nhat Hanh.
We Are the Economy: The Buddhist Way of Work, Consumption, and Money by Kai Romhardt.
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