Stochastic Growth Trajectory: Good or Bad?
We often have preconceived notions about the meaning of career growth. Typically, it's assumed to mean climbing the corporate ladder, moving into higher positions, and often transitioning into management. However, this linear path isn't the only way to grow professionally. My personal journey led me to experience a different approach: the stochastic growth trajectory.
Increasingly Confused
Throughout my career I have been nothing if not confused. In fact, the confusion has gone up over time. The last time I was confident of anything was when I was 13 years old - when I was convinced I wanted to do Physics. It was towards the end of grad school when I started considering leaving academia. But at that point I didn't know if anyone would hire me, and in what role. And I was really surprised to get hired by Palantir. This unexpected turn would shape my understanding of career growth in ways I couldn't have anticipated.
Palantir's approach to Growth
I spent 7 years at Palantir, and I can confidently say that I would not have stayed for that long if Palantir did not have the healthy approach to growth that it has. I got to explore a lot of different things in a relatively short timeframe. But there was more to it than just accelerated growth.
At Palantir it is expected that you own your growth. You are expected to be self-aware, critical, and intentional about how you grow. This is not an easy thing to do, especially early in your career. But it is what allows for people to grow into positions where they can have an outsized impact. It is also what keeps employees engaged and driven.
For me personally, this meant I was able to be an SRE, a Tech Lead, a backend developer, a product manager, a sales engineer, a data scientist, a data engineer, and a people manager during my 7 years at Palantir. This is what allowed me to go from managing a team of 20-25 people to being an IC dev on a backend team because I wanted to invest in my technical skills. Even when I moved from management to an IC role, I was still growing.
Flip Side
There is however a flip side to this.
Firstly, the responsibility of figuring out what growth means is completely on you. You have to figure out not just what growth means, but also how to grow in those areas. This can be quite hard. I was fortunate to have found the right leads, mentors and peers to help me.
Secondly, the micro-decisions you might make while trying to figure out what to work on next might not necessarily lead you to your macro-goals. To be honest, even today I am still figuring out what my macro-goals are. And the increasing awareness of not-knowing what I want to do gives me pause in figuring out what project to take on next.
Conclusion
I don't really have a conclusion for this post. I don't know if a stochastic growth trajectory is good or bad. Looking back I found the that "own your growth" worked for me, maybe. But it is not for everyone, and I don't even know if it worked for me or not.
Perhaps one way to think about it is to not worry much about macro-goals, especially if you don't have clarity about what they are. Instead focus on learning and growing in the near-term, and having faith that whatever you end up working on, there is a high chance that you will learn something new, and grow.
If you are curious, genuine, and keen to learn, you will land on your feet.