[ale] Technical Career Paths

[Benjamin Scherrey]

	The most common choices that I see made by people in this situation
are a) keep your mouth shut and be miserable with your job and b) keep
your mouth shut until you line up a new job then quit. In this country
(USA), "a" is never a correct option but the real trouble that I see
is what is in common with these two options, i.e., "keep your mouth
shut". I don't know why employees never seem to be willing or capable
of letting their employers know what it is that they want out of their
job. This phenomenon is probably closely related to the inverse value
relationship that employers feel towards an employee that they have on
staff vs. one they do not - for some reason the employer that doesn't
currently have you seems to always value you more than the one who
does. This can be used to your favour as we will see later.

	My recommendation is to figure out exactly what you want from your
job then let your employer know about it. A stunning idea I know but
one that is less and less attempted I find. I guess the employee fears
rejection and possible firing but I've never once seen that occur (and
they'd probably be better off if it did!). Obviously telling him "I
better be coding CORBA by next week or I quit" is not a good idea.
Some tact is necessary but you should be straightforward and honest.
Let your employer know why you want what your asking for so he'll be
able to buy in on your vision of the future. You'll be able to judge
from the response whether you need to accelerate your job search
effort or whether it looks like you might be able to achieve what
you're looking for. Its doubtful that you'll be reassigned right away
but you should be able to get some sense of time (whether agreed upon
or in your own mind) as to when you should see progress towards your
goal. If your employer's response seems positive but after a while you
see no signs of progress you should start a new job search (secretly)
and remind your boss, this time asking for an agreed upon time frame.

	Of course, if the response you get is completely underwhelming then
fixup your resume and hunt around. In your resignation letter (written
*after* you've got an offer you like) be sure and remind your employer
of your request to let him know why he lost you. If your loss seems
great to your (now former) employer then your ex-boss will possibly be
reprimanded (this can really be entertaining if he's a jerk) and you
can always agree to return part-time as a consultant at approximately
triple your effective hourly rate as your employment! I've actually
seen this done before...

	good luck & later,

		Ben Scherrey

Raptor wrote:
<snip> 
> What advice could anyone give to a budding Java developer that wants
> to stay technologically oriented, but keeps being given tasks
> unrelated to technology in general and unrelated to the technology
> that interests him or her?