If I join as a SDET today, where should I see myself after 10 years?

The context of this blogpost is captured here. In short, this is a part of Q & A i did with Women Testers website recently on the topic of careers and beyond. The questions were asked mostly by people who were at the early stages of their career. The series can be located at: https://www.womentesters.com/q-and-a-with-anuj-part-1/

Q: If I join as a SDET today, where should I see myself after 10 years?

[Anuj] In the next 10 years, you should see yourself as a CEO of an organization making immense impact on the company, employees and society. 

What distinguishes us humans from other living species in the power to dream. Why waste this power by choosing to dream small. One promise we should make to ourselves is that whenever we think of future, it is bigger, bolder and better, much better than today. 

There is one more perspective I would like to offer on this subject. When we think of ten year career horizons, we generally tend to think growing vertically i.e. if I am an SDET now, I would be Senior SDET in 2 years, then Staff SDET and so on. There is nothing wrong in thinking vertically except for the fact that vertical plans for careers tend to be self-limiting. What I mean by self-limiting is that designations trap you into thinking that reaching next level is the only goal you should have even if you are capable and are performing at much higher levels. 

If you consider any industry leader you admire and look at their career profiles, I bet they wouldn’t have reached where they have reached by just following organization’s laid down career frameworks. They may have followed that a bit but more than that they would traversed horizontally and chartered their own unique paths.

In summary:

1. You are capable of reaching at unprecedented heights in your career in 10 years time provided you choose to aim higher at the first step.

2. Follow career paths laid down by organizations as a guidance at best but not the only way to grow. Successful people create their own paths however difficult it may be.

3. Like everything around you, within next 10 years the SDET role itself would have undergone transformation for good or bad. It’s best to have a pulse of what’s happening around you, have informed opinion about the future and change course as needed.