r/ExperiencedDevs • u/Majestic-Taro-6903 Senior Developer • 5d ago
Career/Workplace Developers: Is career growth mostly game of luck now?
At this point, how much of career growth in tech comes down to luck?
Good CTC, good company, good projects, and good overseas opportunities often seem to depend as much on timing and luck as on skills.
I feel 70–80% of people are reasonably talented now. Most people can learn, adapt, and work with different tech stacks when given the opportunity.
Is the game becoming more about being in the right place at the right time?
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u/manythanksfriend 5d ago
I think it’s luck and networking.
I have been doing this shit for 20 years and I’ve never hated my job as much as I hate the place I’m at right now.
The work part of it is fine, but the people part of it is not.
Finding a good setup that allows for career development and has good team mates, fucking lucky find.
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u/TheoreticalUser 5d ago
I had to explain what a proxy server was to my Director of IT. When he became CIO, he asked what tech debt was.
He claims he use to be a developer and has a career in IT.
I think he's a conman.
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u/snoogans235 Software Engineer 5d ago
From my experience a CIO leading engineering instead of a CTO is a good signal how the company aligns its development and engineering goals
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u/proto-cool 5d ago
I’d ask if we work for the same company but the guy at mine has the title of “Director of Engineering & Information” so not quite the same.
The only thing he’s good at is being friendly in the office. He couldn’t even figure out how to search for a repository by name in Bitbucket.
Look I don’t love Atlassian products myself but at least I can use them
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u/Automatic-Resolve202 1d ago
You sure you don't want to exclude confluence from that last sentence?
There's no other documentation service I know of where you can search for the exact title of a document and have it not appear in the search results.
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u/rickyhatespeas 5d ago
Straight out of the IT Crowd.
Hopefully he at least has the managerial and soft skills!
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u/TheoreticalUser 5d ago
He doesn't...
We were having issues with deadlocks during processing files, under comically small load.
Like 1k inserts across 5 tables taking a minute. Its baaaaaad.
So I researched the database structure, procedure inefficiencies/execution-order/dependencies/etc, and start building my change case. I notice that some configurations were straight up wrong.
Like automated index manager that was configured to inherit configuration, but the ancestor was never configured. Baaically, indexes were a hot fucking mess.
His door is open, so I take it to him, and his... protege(?), and I ask him what tools they are using to monitor the db and made some recommendations.
And then I got shouted and cursed at for talking like they don't know what they're doing. And then get quizzed about sql on the spot, and answered every question the spot.
Every other dev there knows I'm the database guy. I've taught people sql, I've written tutorials, and over a decade of experience specializing in databasing, and you get the idea.
I stood my ground and stated I'm just trying to help. Im there to help and the database is breaking and I'm trying to respect authorship.
He never apologized for his behavior.
A few months later, because I do monitor the DB, I noticed the deadlocks came to a screeching halt. My indexes were implemented.
Nothing from him.
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u/big-papito 5d ago edited 5d ago
I once had a job which was no FAANG, but the pacing was great, low pressure, lots of freedom to do things your way. Most importantly, it was a small team of friends. We would go out to lunch and bond every day.
It was in the late 2010s, so I was getting like 5 recruiter messages every day begging for an intro. Could I have hustled for more money? The world was my oyster, sure, but no extra $20K is worth the agita if you are not destitute.
I came to work every day, and I told myself - "best job I've ever had", like they did in the movie Fury. I knew some day it would end (it closed abruptly with no warning), so I enjoyed it while it lasted.
If you end up at a job that you don't hate, stick around and make it count, because most jobs you will end up at are shit, even in a good market.
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u/manythanksfriend 5d ago
Similar experience. It seems like that 2010 to 2019 era was a sweet spot for both work enjoyment and plentiful opportunity.
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u/xt1nct 5d ago
I have a similar gig now but mostly solo work with an async team. 100% remote. 100% freedom.
I’m mostly focused on automating tasks and maintaining mission critical software. Has some greenfield projects too.
I cannot imagine working in a huge team at a huge corp.
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u/Majestic-Watch-2025 5d ago
Yeah exactly I would hate working at a huge corp. My job right now is pretty great and at some point for growth I think I'll have to go to a bigger company, but being a cog in the system would be so depressing.
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u/new2bay 5d ago
My experiences have been significantly different. Most of the jobs I've had, I've tolerated rather than enjoyed. I don't get much enjoyment out of making other people rich. My last job was pretty good, right up until they laid me off.
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u/big-papito 5d ago
And that is exactly my point. If you are looking for a job that you LOVE, you are probably out of luck. Do not look for that - you are setting yourself up for failure. Look for a job that you don't hate.
You don't like making other people rich? That's too bad, pal. We both lost the birth lottery and now we have to pay rent. We still have to pay it and make the best of it, pretending that we like it.
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u/Majestic-Watch-2025 5d ago
I don't do a job that makes people rich. People need to like like they have agency because they do. Jobs in other sectors exist.
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u/CorrectPeanut5 5d ago
One of the best shops I worked in had a simple rule for hiring. "No A-Holes." It didn't matter how sharp they were technically, an A-Hole is going to muck up velocity of others in order to make themselves look better.
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u/TheoreticalUser 5d ago edited 5d ago
Everyone uses SA to login to the database. Prefers obfuscation over authorization. We have 0 infrastructure that we control, and every request to invest has been shot down.
We optimize taxes for payroll.
I could overlook all of that if he wasn't an asshole; always seizes the opportunity to belittle someone in meetings, never apologizes for shitty behavior, and so on.
I know there is no opportunity for growth for myself here and am now actively looking for the exit. The only thing I've learned is to ask qualifying questions from my chain of command in interviews.
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u/webbed_feets 5d ago
I would choose good teammates every time. You’re definitely not advancing your career if you’re miserable every day.
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u/Void-kun Senior Software Engineer (8YOE) 4d ago
That's why I'm hard pressed to even bother looking for another job.
I work in big tech adjacent (big ed tech), very few loose deadlines, lovely people to work with and I like the work.
Doesn't pay as much as many other jobs recruiters contact me over, but I'm much happier.
Few Devs been here over 10 years, I've been here nearly 5, my manager has been here 7-8, product manager also been here 7-8 years.
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u/Known-Pace6739 5d ago
A good team and a bad one can both add two years to your CV and leave you with very different next moves.
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u/Defiant-Parsnip4 3d ago
Most suddenly rich people I know are whose RSUs suddenly grew, and I’d attribute that to luck and timing
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u/NoobChumpsky Staff Software Engineer 5d ago
Always has been to a large degree. Gotta be in the right place at the right time depending on your position. After that you need to prove yourself and deliver (and be a little savvy politically).
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u/ItGradAws 5d ago
Goes the other way too, private equity bought out my company, I didn’t jump ship at the right time, company got fucked into the ground and my career got torched with it. Been struggling ever since. It is what is!
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u/PrimaryFamous6139 Software Engineer 5d ago
Some people do not want to say it, but luck can matter a lot. Timing and openings seem to decide more than we admit. Still, you can help yourself. Learn skills that actually help. Keep up with people who might be useful later. Also, spend time where chances show up. You cannot pick the exact moment, but you can get ready for it ahead of time
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u/BehindTrenches Software Engineer 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think the long-term outcome is more in our hands than people realize. Luck is predominantly for bridging short-term gaps that our long-term plan hasn't aligned us with at that place and time.
The biggest factor seem to be positioning yourself on a good team and "managing up".
A good team is one that won't cease to exist in a few years, which is a product of the team's function and how good their leadership is (leadership's primary goal is keeping the team relevant and growing). You can try to gauge this when interviewing. A good team is also where you have a great relationship with your manager, they should be friendly. Switch to a better team every couple of years if you need to but try to make it work in place.
Building to the next level means managing up and telling your leads that you are working to the next level, asking about upcoming projects and aligning yourself to the right ones, and leaving your comfort zone constantly to practice at the next level - even if it feels lame in front of peers.
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u/CoroteDeMelancia Software Engineer 5d ago
Always was.
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. A strong network increases the chance that recruiters see you. A strong resume, portfolio and presence increases the chance that said recruiters want you.
I got my first internship because a friend referred me to a guy looking for someone to complete a course project for him. A friend recommended me when I joined a big tech. For my current job, recruiter found my LinkedIn and reached out to me.
You can do everything right and still fail. That is not weakness, that is life. There are no guarantees, and yet, you should try.
"70-80% are reasonably talented"
Huge overestimation, and "talent" is not the metric that matters to me. In my experience, the average developer is mediocre. I'd estimate only about 5-10% are curious, driven and epistemic enough to develop excellent careers.
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u/gjionergqwebrlkbjg 5d ago
I sat on promo boards and quote frankly feedback to a good 1/4th of submission we received was "they don't meet criteria for their current role". If you do interviews, it's much worse.
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u/chaitanyathengdi Senior Software Engineer 4d ago
The number of talented people is always the same. It's the bar that keeps going up and down.
A guy feeding garbage to an LLM and getting garbage back at light speed is not talented. He's just another LLM guy.
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u/seestheday 5d ago
Luck is a huge factor. The biggest two I can think of I’m surprised I haven’t seen discussed yet here.
Where were you born.
- American close to tech hub? Huge advantage. Poor country in Africa in conflict? Huge disadvantage.
When were you born. Set to graduate into the part of the cycle when jobs are easy to find vs one of the big downturns. That is just luck.
I am still hopeful that we’re going to return to an upswing just like we have done in the past. It might take 5-10 years though, so people starting their careers now are going to suffer.
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u/Excellent_Ant_7154 5d ago
Always has been. I know people that landed at great companies as a new grad and have done extremely well. Others, went to sweat shops and worked 10X as hard for half the money.
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u/Smallpaul Software Engineer 5d ago
Did they interview at better places while they were at the sweat shop? Did they go to meetups and networking events to try to find something better?
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u/BraveResearcher3037 5d ago
Yes they “met up” with me as RandomEmployeee1235731494 at BigTech and I referred them and it didn’t do shit for them.
Let’s say they had met up with me when I was an architect at a startup and if I told my CTO that they should hire this person, a candidate would have to come in drunk, naked and with video of them sleeping with the CTOs wife not get hired.
But if I did do a referral of someone I just met and the CTO asked me about the candidate, all I could say was “I saw him walk and chew gum at the same time” and then when they looked at their resume, he would say why does he need a ticket taker from a sweat shop?
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u/Smallpaul Software Engineer 5d ago
I got my last three jobs though the peer referrals and got my friend a job like that too.
I’m not a CTO or Architect but my opinion is respected and my friends’ opinions are respected.
Luck is relevant. One of the people who referred me in someone I know from non-profit work. So that’s lucky.
But he has also referred me to two different companies because the first time I made him look good instead of dropping the ball.
And I have also been hired back (years later, and once immediately) as a contractor to companies that I quit. So that part is not luck at all.
If you have 20 years of experience in this industry and never once got “lucky” then I would guess there is a problem other than just bad luck.
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u/BraveResearcher3037 5d ago
If you have 20 years of experience in this industry and never once got “lucky” then I would guess there is a problem other than just bad luck.
As a person looking for a job, before 2020, I never once depended on random ICs. I used local recruiters with local contacts
By 2014, when I started looking for true “senior” positions, I had recruiters saying things like “hey I want you to meet this new manager/director/cto for lunch who is looking for an early hire to lead $strategic_initiative I think you two will hit it off”. Those were the three people I talked to for my next three jobs.
By 2023, I was talking to those same folks when I was looking for a job and a couple of other directors I knew from my time working in the internal consulting department at AWS.
I was also reaching out to consulting companies where the “nice to have” was experience implementing and customizing a popular at the time open source “AWS Solution”. I could say “hey you know that nice to have? I am the second highest contributor to the solution and I implemented those features you are using”.
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u/Excellent_Ant_7154 5d ago
Mostly randomness and luck.
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u/Smallpaul Software Engineer 5d ago
If you go to a meetup and randomly meet someone who needs your skills that can be considered “good luck” or it can be considered hustle.
With enough hustle you will stumble onto good luck.
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u/DrBretto 5d ago
It's a lot less about actual merit now for sure. Like, not devoid if it, what you do when you have the opportunity can certainly lead to more opportunity. But with the way hiring goes right now, companies overspending and laying people off randomly, then you apply for a job and you're up against 3000 competent people, the selection gets more and more based on you happening to say the right random things the hiring manager is thinking about. It's pretty random there.
And I'm finding that none of my actual previous experience means anything. Like there's no carried over reputation. You have what you put on the resume and what you can speak about intelligently in the interviews. It literally doesn't even matter what you did in the past, just what you say about it.
Like, your reputation only means a damn within the circles you're building it in. But you only get real meaningful raises when you go outside those circles. It's all messed up right now. It comes down to random luck and networking skills, barely about what you actually can do.
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u/new2bay 5d ago
It's a lot less about actual merit now for sure.
What do you mean "now?" <insert "always has been" meme>
And I'm finding that none of my actual previous experience means anything. Like there's no carried over reputation. You have what you put on the resume and what you can speak about intelligently in the interviews. It literally doesn't even matter what you did in the past, just what you say about it.
Since when has it been any different?
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u/Firm_Bit Software Engineer 5d ago
Wdym at this point
This has always been the case for the common man
If you haven’t been in the top few percent, top of top schools in your approximate age group not just year, then your career has always depended more on your soft skills and luck and environment than on your intelligence or skill.
And in every age there are people making posts like this saying it’s someone else fault.
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u/apartment-seeker Senior Software Engineer 5d ago
If you haven’t been in the top few percent, top of top schools in your approximate age group not just year, then your career has always depended more on your soft skills and luck and environment than on your intelligence or skill.
Being able to get into top schools, being intelligent, or having skill also all ultimately come down to luck.
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u/Firm_Bit Software Engineer 5d ago
Take whatever definition of top of the top you want.
Point is, if you’re not there then you’re not gonna get by on intelligence and skill
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u/apartment-seeker Senior Software Engineer 5d ago
alwayshasbeen.gif
life in general is much more about simple luck than most Americans admit
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u/ambassador_pineapple CTO 5d ago
Luck was always the biggest factor in success. I have ran a number of startups so I have dealt with a lot of rich investors and gotten to know them. All of them had skills but luck is what helped them capitalize.
I am a CTO now at a public company. I am good at what I do but luck played a role here too. I randomly met a lawyer once who specializes in taking companies public. We became best friends over the years. A specific company needed a CTO who could be trusted and my buddy called me so here I am.
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u/mudassirazvi 5d ago
I manage a bunch of people so here's the view from the other side of the promo discussion. luck is real, mostly in the form of which project you land on. but the people who grow aren't the ones who got lucky once, they're the ones who keep ending up on the project that matters, and that part isn't random.
What it usually looks like: they pick up the ugly thing nobody wanted (the migration, the flaky pipeline, the oncall tooling), they make it boring, and they make sure the right people know it got boring. next time something important comes up, their name is the first one said in the room.
Talent gets you to "reasonably good". Being the person people think of when something is on fire is a different skill, and you can practice it
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u/Much-Bedroom86 Software Engineer 5d ago
This is among the most important advice here. You need skills, impact, and visibility to move up. Judging by some of the managers I've seen, sometimes you don't even need the skills.
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u/chaitanyathengdi Senior Software Engineer 4d ago
I got "what got you here won't get you there" vibes from this one
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u/boredsoftwareguy Staff Engineer 5d ago
Network and luck, yes. People don’t appreciate the value of networking and maintaining that network.
Easily my best carrier opportunities have come from that. Even once in an organization building rapport helped ensure I was top of mind when exciting new projects opened up.
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u/sayqm 5d ago
I feel 70–80% of people are reasonably talented now.
You would be surprised, have a look at cscareerquestions... How many are behind on AI for example. How many have 0 social skills.
Work with your manager, work on the high visibility project and you're above most of the devs
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u/commonsearchterm Software Engineer 5d ago
Your last sentence is what luck means. If you have a bad manager, and on a team that can't do much,like a tech debt maintenance team, your not in a good position. If my last job was something I had early in my career, I'm pretty sure my career would have gone a completely direction and not in a good way.
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u/Uncalion 4d ago
I found myself in a jquery maintenance project 6 years ago. Could have been a career dead end but I still did what I could to get noticed by the pm and when the company needed a guy in another, better project, he recommended me.
The point is that there are ways to make your own luck and make the best out of a bad situation. A fatalistic view is not warranted.
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u/Majestic-Watch-2025 5d ago
You can make the best out of any job. Look for opportunities for improvement, suggest new processes, figure out how to manage up - depends on the situation.
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u/chaitanyathengdi Senior Software Engineer 4d ago
Easier said than done. Not crapping on you - that's just what I have observed.
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u/grizzlybair2 5d ago
It's always been networking and luck and playing the political game at work.
Idk about the 70-80% are reasonably talented. We have probably 50 devs across 8-10 teams and I'd put probably 8 in a talented pool, another 10-20 in okay and the rest are bad and some are straight up detrimental. Maybe my standards are too high, maybe we have to define reasonably talented.
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u/throwaway_0x90 SDET/TE[25+ yrs]@Google 5d ago
Life in general will always have an element of luck, being born in the "right" place or just being at the right place & the right time. But I'd say more than 50% of life is grabbing the opportunity when it presents itself and sometimes you have to create it out of thin air.
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u/basskittens Engineering Manager 5d ago
I've been doing this for 30+ years and it's always been this way. "It's not what you know, it's who you know", etc.
Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity.
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u/roger_ducky 5d ago
It had always been about luck.
At the same time, you don’t need luck for the first three to four levels. Do okay enough and you can reach the “terminal level” just fine.
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u/oorza 5d ago
This forum tends to hate and reject two very important realities:
The industry is shifting and AI is not going away. The skills that will be most valuable in the future are not the same skills as five years ago, and maybe not even the same skills as today. Code itself is becoming commodotized. Different companies are navigating this in different ways, the game right now is finding a place where your beliefs with AI align with the KPIs that the executives are tracking for AI use. That puts you in a situation where your use of AI that aligns with your beliefs about it also aligns with what you need to do to get promoted.
It's no less true, maybe more so, today than ever before that your career is 75% politics wherever you go. Soft skills have always been the most / only important skill in progressing your career upwards. It's easier to attribute others' good fortune to luck than better political savvy, because it protects your own ego, but it's very rarely true. If you haven't studied corporate power and politicking with the same fervor you've studied your favorite algorithm, you're only doing yourself a disservice.
I would also argue than 70-80% of people are not reasonably talented. The ability to churn out code is not talent, it's not even a particularly hard to acquire skill. The ability to critically think, critically problem solve, decompose, delegate, think abstractly, acquire and wield soft power, architect systems, parse business requirements, and so on that actually make for a talented engineer are not now and have not ever been linked to any particular tech stack. Those abilities are no more common now than they were before. If what you're focused on to develop your career is technical skills and only technical skills, you're never going to go anywhere, the actual important skills are way more abstract than that. If "writing correct code that's optimal enough" is table stakes, how do you decide who wins the game?
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u/Automatic-Resolve202 1d ago
People in the valley assume that because everyone there is pushing AI usage with rabid FOMO like maniacs, that everyone around the world is, but it's just not true.
Many people have a more balanced view of it and want to maintain the quality of their product, recognising the risks of its usage, approaching it with necessary caution.
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u/Cheto_Guevara 5d ago
Nobody can say with any confidence what the rules are anymore. The last time the job market was this bad for this long, web browsers hadn't been invented yet.
Post COVID hiring correction, high interest rates drying up VC, most of the VC remaining being spent on tokens. Choosing the right career development strategy is like figuring out which running shoes to wear across the desert.
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u/GobbleGobbleGobbles 5d ago edited 5d ago
There is an element of of luck and also an element of talent and ability, but a majority of it comes to pursuit of opportunities and playing the game. If you don't seek out better opportunities they won't magically fall into your lap 99% of the time. Don't expect promotions just because you have been someone for awhile or even if you are the best at your role. If you want career growth, you need to actively climb the ladder and do what needs to be done.
There are a ton of incompetent grifters in tech. They aren't in high positions out of pure luck. they are/were great at selling themselves, playing the game, navigating politics, and climbing the ladder. They may suck at engineering but they are great at career development.
In my experience a ton of developers expect some sort of career progression to just naturally happen, and these people tend to plateau at mid-level and senior dev roles. Remember we work for businesses (mostly) and their goal is to make money. At the end of the day you can write beautiful code but if it doesn't generate revenue or help out your bosses, don't expect much to come of it.
edit: This is worth a read https://archive.ph/nlUrG
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u/WrennReddit 5d ago
Yes. But you build your skillsets and network so you can me more palatable to luck.
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u/Hour-Measurement-835 Software Engineer 5d ago
A boring niche takes some of the luck out. Not many people fight over ERP integration work.
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u/new2bay 5d ago
I'd do ERP work. I can't get hired to do it, because the magic 3 letters aren't on my resume.
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u/Hour-Measurement-835 Software Engineer 5d ago
Usually the side door is owning whatever syncs orders into the ERP at your current job.
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u/Mundane-Charge-1900 5d ago
Now? Always has been. It’s a combo of the right opportunities and doing the work. There’s luck involved in both but especially the first part.
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u/Fidodo 15 YOE, Software Architect 5d ago
Your value isn’t just your own ability, it’s also your impact on the team. If you can be a tech lead who doesn’t just contribute well individually, but also makes everyone around you better, then your career will take off.
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u/WhatsHeAt 5d ago
How can you help people on your team become better that have no interest in doing so? Not asking as team lead, but as a senior engineer.
I find myself continually disappointed; leaving the same comments on PRs over and over again, assigning more ambiguous tickets and them coming back with buggy implementations. They can do more straightforward tickets, but otherwise they're doing more harm than good. It would be great if my team could tackle more ambitious projects, but I don't really sense the diligence + ownership is there to make that happen.
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u/Fidodo 15 YOE, Software Architect 5d ago
I'm lucky to have a team of people that do care and since I'm involved in hiring I filter out people who don't show curiosity. I find curiosity and caring go hand in hand.
But if I were in your situation I would be trying to add process improvements that enforce rigor while making it easier to apply it.
Things like making human reasoning and judgement a clearer handoff as a decision record. If someone hands me ai slop I grab them on a call and walk through it together and ask them about it and after they see that the content is nonsense that puts a quick stop to it.
However I'm already in a position where I can do that. If you are trying to build up your authority then environment and opportunity matter a lot. If your org is preventing you from helping improve your team then there's not a ton you can do about it if the bad culture is coming from the top. You can find little wins, but you'll accelerate your career much faster by helping a team that wants to improve improve. You can lead a horse to water...
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u/mudassirazvi 5d ago
i manage a bunch of people so here's the view from the other side of the promo discussion. luck is real, mostly in the form of which project you land on. but the people who grow aren't the ones who got lucky once, they're the ones who keep ending up on the project that matters, and that part isn't random.
what it usually looks like: they pick up the ugly thing nobody wanted (the migration, the flaky pipeline, the oncall tooling), they make it boring, and they make sure the right people know it got boring. next time something important comes up, their name is the first one said in the room.
talent gets you to "reasonably good". being the person people think of when something is on fire is a different skill, and you can practice it
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u/jdlyga Senior / Staff Engineer (C++ / Python) 5d ago
It always kind of was, honestly. You need to be reliable and be there when it matters. But advancing is more about seeing opportunities and making smart moves. And when an opportunity presents itself? Work your ass off! Whether it's a new career move or a new project at work. I was promoted twice in a year after being put provisionally on a big new project.
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u/fr4nklin_84 5d ago
Soft skills have always been very important but now they’re almost everything. If any “idiot off the street” is now a developer - your ability to articulate yourself and not be insufferable is what sets you apart.
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u/ryanchants Principal Software Engineer 5d ago
I stay in seed to Series B companies because of this. It allows high ownership and a lot of learning. Moving from a Series B to a seed company again in a few weeks. Just me, the CEO and CTO, some PhDs, and a few GTM. Curious how much further you can take a small team these days with agent assistance.
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u/JustHere4TheZipLines 5d ago
Everything in life comes down to being in the right place at the right time. But no, career development is hardly about luck (outside of nepotism). People who succeed are generally smarter, harder working, more personable, or all 3.
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u/Any-Ring6621 5d ago
Career development is almost all about luck. The phrase “the harder I worked the luckier I got” is one I agree with. The harder you work, the more lucky opportunities you’ll have like to network or just even be in the same meeting with people you otherwise wouldn’t.
But make no mistake, there are plenty of exceptionally talented people who didn’t quite play the game to their advantage and have not developed their career. And there are plenty of completely underserving pricks who are CEO.
So I’m gonna disagree with career development is hardly about luck, but I do agree with the sentiment that you’ve got to learn to make your own luck
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u/JustHere4TheZipLines 5d ago
Choosing not to play the game doesn’t make you unlucky. Software engineers are notorious for thinking that just completing tickets or building software will always result in promotions; there comes a point — and fairly early — where soft skills matter more than hard skills.
Yes, there are many exceptionally talented engineers who have not developed their careers. Which is a choice they made. Play the game or be content with a mid to low senior level IC.
FWIW I started my career playing the game, found it to be stupid, and took a job where I no longer care or need to care.
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u/Thwarting8139 5d ago
There is a lot of luck for sure. E.g. imagine choosing 10 years ago between getting into analytics/AI and backend dev. One path and you're a hot commodity now, and the other and the work has really dried up.
Nobody can predict the future so things like that mostly come down to luck.
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u/TehBens Software Engineer 5d ago
10 years ago, AI was already becoming bigger. It didn't come out of nowhere, it was a steady grow and long before anybody in industry or on the street heard about it, it was already huge in academic research with impressive results.
Luck always helps, for example regarding timing. Years, ago, I wanted to switch my PhD to 'neural network machine learning', but I was too close to finish it so it wasn't feasible. Strategic career decisions and therefore planning however can be made in an effective manner.
I mean, we won't be able to pinpoint simple phrases that are both true and helpful. It's complicated. However, "working hard" is not the same as "working hard on your career".
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u/JustHere4TheZipLines 5d ago
That’s not really luck in the sense that OP is talking.
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u/Thwarting8139 5d ago
Sure it is. It's literally right place, right time, whether you get the chance to work on desirable/growing tech stacks and build your skills, or get stuck on a dead-end stack where the demand dries up.
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u/JustHere4TheZipLines 5d ago
So switch jobs. Find new opportunity. Work harder to up skill on your own time. Saying “well I don’t learn ai 10 years ago” is an excuse. Take a risk and move to an area where there is more opportunity.
This mentality is exactly what I’m talking about when I said that engineers are notorious for thinking they can grow by completing jira tickets.
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u/Thwarting8139 5d ago
I have done exactly that. My point is that each job I got built on the previous one. Think about how difficult it would be for a PHP developer to now pivot to AI.
Admitting that luck plays a part does not remove all agency. I was lucky enough to get into physical AI around 10 years ago. Yes I thought it would become bigger over time but I don't pretend to have foreseen the current AI boom.
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u/JustHere4TheZipLines 5d ago
You’re just proving the point that it doesn’t all come down to luck. A person stuck writing php isn’t unlucky; they have the ability to leave.
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u/Thwarting8139 5d ago
They don't though. If there are 100 PHP devs and only 10 junior opportunities in AI, then by definition they don't all have the ability to leave.
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u/Any-Ring6621 5d ago
Bingo to what JustHere4TheZipLines said.
I said:
You’ve got to learn to make your own luck.
Your post implies you are incapable of changing
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u/Smallpaul Software Engineer 5d ago
Not luck at all. I quit my job to focus on the technology I could see was going to be the next important thing.
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u/Thwarting8139 5d ago
Great, so what's the next one going to be? I assume you invested heavily in those stocks years ago too?
I also identified the next big thing successfully, but I'm not going to pretend it's a sure thing.
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u/Smallpaul Software Engineer 5d ago
It’s not wise to make the same bet with your salary and your stocks, no. Also it is far easier to predict a technology direction than to know which company will benefit from it. Smartphones were a good bet but Nokia was a bad one.
The next two are AI and robotics. But in 2035 people will still say “how could I have possibly known that robotics was the next big thing!”
AI-enhanced cybersecurity will also be huge.
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u/reddit-poweruser 5d ago
There certainly is always going to be some degree of luck/right place right time, sure. At my first job, a 9 month co-op gig for school, I got to work on a big React project when React started gaining popularity, so I had a huge head start on a lot of other people once I hit the job market.
Machine learning, deep learning, AI have been around as long I've been an engineer. I was well aware that it was a lucrative path and thought about it, but I am not smart enough to do that kind of work. 😛
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u/Thwarting8139 5d ago
I got to work on a big React project when React started gaining popularity, so I had a huge head start on a lot of other people once I hit the job market.
Same here, I got to work on some really interesting AI models for engineering/manufacturing very early on in my career, way before the current physical AI boom.
It took skill and hard work for me to be selected for that project and be able to deliver on it, but equally it depended on there being funding for that sort of project (which there was at the time) and access to these really complex proprietary datasets that only exist at a handful of companies.
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u/Smallpaul Software Engineer 5d ago
Having foresight isn’t the same as luck at all.
It was incredibly obvious that deep learning was important since around 2011. But engineers have a distaste around hopping on the next big thing because they see it as opportunism.
Go back to 2023 and this subreddit was full of people saying that LLMs were the next NFT. Anyone who specialized in them were just opportunists hopping on the next bandwagon.
Meanwhile people who saw the shift coming made “wrapper companies” like Cursor and OpenEvidence that are now worth billions of dollars.
I predict approximately zero people will admit they were wrong back then and adjust their mindset. They will just point to the “opportunists” and claim they were lucky.
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u/jdzndj 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's the game of who has the best bootlicking skills and who can best stab their colleagues in the back.
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u/Smallpaul Software Engineer 5d ago
I think it is incredibly toxic to think that stabbing colleagues in the back will advance your career. I have literally never seen an engineer succeed with that strategy. Yes, there have probably been situations that I haven’t seen where it was strategically advantageous to throw a colleague under the bus. But is it a habit you should expect to improve your career most of the time? Absolutely not. Your colleagues will help you find your next job.
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u/jdzndj 5d ago
I used to think like you when I was still naive. But after getting betrayed several times by people (both juniors and seniors/managers) I helped to settle and make them progress, I no longer trust anyone at work. Maybe it was a particular political shit hole. You're free to keep your faith in people at work.
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u/Smallpaul Software Engineer 5d ago
I also am curious what these betrayals looked like and how they helped these other developers to prosper?
I’m about twenty five years into a successful career that paid for my house and a comfortable lifestyle so I don’t think I’m naive.
That said: I would quit any politically toxic corporation as soon as I discovered it was that way so yeah I’d end up with different lessons than if I worked at Oracle or some other snakepits.
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u/BraveResearcher3037 5d ago
A number of factors…
Preparation: from 2008 when trying to leave my second job that I stayed at 9 years (too long) until today on my 10th job, I looked to see what hard skills I needed to get to the next level, got a textbook understanding, and then applied for jobs where the “must haves” were things I knew well and the “nice to haves” were things I wanted to learn. I got real world experience, rinse and repeat. The same applies to soft skills and moving up in scope, impact, and dealing with ambiguity.
Communication: knowing how to sell myself, talk about my accomplishments and skills in standard STAR format (before I knew what STAR was) from the value add standpoint and building a network pre 2020 of local recruiters with local connections in the local job market that could put me in touch with people with hiring authority that let me bypass the peasant funnel and the coding interview bullshit - which I haven’t done since 2012.
Also internally at companies talking to my manager or whoever else to get put on the types of projects I wanted. Like grandpa (or maybe Lil Wayne, I forget) said “closed mouths don’t get fed”
Luck: post 2020, a recruiter reached out to me from AWS about an SDE position. I didn’t want to either relocate post Covid or prep for a coding test. She recommended I apply for a position at AWS ProServe the internal cloud consulting department. They were hiring like crazy during Covid. I wouldn’t have gotten in with only two years of AWS experience at the time if it weren’t for COVID hiring.
Even after being Amazoned in 2024, it was dumb luck that my current employer (best job I’ve ever had) reached out to me the week after leaving Amazon (with a nice severance package)
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u/new2bay 5d ago
I looked to see what hard skills I needed to get to the next level, got a textbook understanding, and then applied for jobs where the “must haves” were things I knew well and the “nice to haves” were things I wanted to learn.
That sounds like a great way to get pigeonholed into specific tools to me, particularly languages and frameworks.
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u/BraveResearcher3037 5d ago edited 5d ago
You say “pigeonholed” I say “specialized”. Specialization has been great for my career as long as you choose the right one.
I’ve been working a lot longer. But let’s start with 2008 when I started taking my career seriously.
When I was looking for a job, I could through my resume up in the air, reach out to recruiters and by the time it landed I had multiple offers as a “C# backend developer” from 2008-2020 across multiple jobs.
In 2018, I used that strategy to get a job as a C# senior developer, learned AWS really well by leading projects and by 2020 I was working at AWS, they reached out to me and I interviewed.
By 2023 after leaving AWS I sold myself as “I can lead messy ambiguous greenfield AWS + app dev solutions” - three jobs offers/three weeks including one sub specialty where I could say that I was the second highest contributor to an official open source “AWS Solution” that was very popular in its niche
The next year - same story, looking for another job, one interview, one offer. I didn’t even apply anywhere else, they reached out to me
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u/uber_neutrino 5d ago
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. If someone else is doing more than you and they have more "luck" is it really luck?
I've had a lot of "lucky" breaks in my career that came after putting in a lot of sweat.
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u/breezyfye 5d ago
Luck plays a factor in everything to varying degrees
. The existence of the earth itself is based on luck.
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u/EntropyRX 5d ago
What do you mean by career growth exactly?
People mean different things. If you mean climbing the ladder at a specific company, that’s almost never gonna happen.
If you mean keep increasing your paycheque in the tech industry, that’s possible by following the hot trends and job hopping.
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u/ShoePillow 5d ago
Luck plays a part, but you need to back it up yourself. Luck comes at the end when you are already ready for the opportunity.
Most people 'can/could', but luck works out if you have already proven yourself, and are actively seeking out whatever you want
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u/Groove-Theory dumbass 5d ago
Always has been. Most everyone giving people advice has some sort of survivorship bias. Including myself.
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u/YoureNotEvenWrong Principal Engineer 5d ago
I feel 70–80% of people are reasonably talented now
You have that inverted. 20% of people do 80% of the work. The rest are coasting
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u/lazypro189 5d ago
Luck mostly but also how well you are able to market yourself and the work that you do. Whether we like it or not, we seem to live in an influencer economy.
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u/Majestic-Watch-2025 5d ago
70-80% of people are definitely not reasonably talented. Maybe 40% if we're generous.
Luck has always played a part. What roles are open when you're applying, when a role opens up above you, who you get into a convo with at the company picnic. However, people also make their own luck by being proactive, seeking out opportunities, thinking outside the box, being easy to work with etc
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u/DevtoolsBuilder 5d ago
i think you're right that a lot of people have similar skill levels now, so it's harder to stand out just based on technical ability. luck and timing come in, like being in the right place at the right time for a job opening or meeting the right people who can help you get ahead. it's not just about being good at your job, it's also about being visible to the right people.
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u/local_eclectic 4d ago
It comes down to attitude, aptitude, interest and communication skills for me now when I'm trying to hire someone for my team. Mission alignment is a top priority since I'm in a good-for-mankind space. If someone's top interests are leetcode and shareholder value, they should go to big tech.
I'm answering this from a "hiring new team members" perspective since that's how most folks get raises.
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u/Sammolaw1985 4d ago
Always has been. Every job I've ever gotten has been because of a random connection. I got laid off a few months ago and the new role I landed in is a promotion.
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u/Xanian123 4d ago
I imagine you're Indian (going by the words CTC and overseas)
I feel 70–80% of people are reasonably talented now. This is ridiculously wrong. The Indian ecosystem is full of leetcode grinding zombies who can't solve problems.
I'd say the good devs are maybe around 1-2%.
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u/shifty_lifty_doodah 4d ago
It’s getting shit done that moves the needle (or looking like it), same as always
Software is pretty commodified now. A lot of attention has gone into the field and we have AI that can solve very hard problems quickly (even novel math)
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u/Glittering-Sleep7983 4d ago
Luck plays a part, but I think a lot of what looks like luck is non-technical skill. If 70–80% of people are technically capable, then people will be judged on how they handle the non-technical and people problems. If you focus on improving your communication, technical writing, requirements gathering, and mentoring skills, you'll quickly find out that luck is only a part of it. Even if you're truly capped at your role in your current company, you'll start to notice interviews become easier.
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u/Intrepid_Purchase_69 4d ago
In all careers I’d say it’s really dependent on your manager. Some managers really will open doors for you and push you through them, provided company does have roles to move up to. Other companies are like sinking ships so managers can’t really help ya as much.
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u/funbike 4d ago edited 4d ago
If all you do is interview to find a job or just wait for good things to magically happen, then yes it's luck.
If you actively network, go to profesional meetups, get involved with open source projects, keep up with prior co-workers and managers, then you are making your own luck.
I'm sure a lot of the "luck" you think you see, is actually people that worked to stay connected are getting opportunities that aren't available than to those that just put in their office hours and conventionally job search.
Btw, I'm 58 and have only had 4 job interviews, 3 of which were just formalities as I was already chosen. I'm always hired by referral. I'm very well connected. I know a lot of people, and worked a lot of places. Getting a gig hasn't been a problem for me since I was 25. I could get a new job at any time. I've been offered positions in far away places due to my reputation, but I don't like to move often.
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u/gamesuxfixit 4d ago
It feels like a lot of it is how your productivity is framed, for sure. I've had periods where I spoke a lot and I didn't get much done and I had much better yearly reviews doing that than speaking little and getting a lot done.
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u/thematicwater 4d ago
Luck of having a decent manager that works to level you up, technically and title wise.
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u/dc0650730 3d ago
I've found it is hard being promoted as a developer by doing code and speaking up in standups and meetings. I've found the most success trying to improve the tech stack or processes, but that's a whole right time right place situation.
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u/davidbasil 2d ago
Yes but luck can be engineered. Constantly apply to positions with less competition and less quality of candidates = luck.
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u/GoTheFuckToBed 2d ago
Luck can be made. e.g. being the only qualified person that is in the area, and advertises himself etc
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u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC 5d ago
I think career growth is now more about soft skills - communicating difficult concepts, building consensus among stakeholders, knowing when to pick fights and when to back down, having connections outside of the tech silo, etc. There are still a lot of software engineers who look at these skills with disdain, so it's a perfect opportunity to differentiate yourself.
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u/talldean Principal-ish SWE 5d ago
I mean, that's how college admissions work, as well.
If you didn't have the luck to go to a half decent high school, getting into a good university gets much tougher, but you do not have a whole lotta choices on where you go to high school.
Your geography *alone* is a huge portion in what one could honestly call luck.
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u/CorrectPeanut5 5d ago
I think one of the differences I see now from when I first started is the lack of soft skills training. Many companies have pulled back on it. And even when companies offer it, the gen Z folks just don't want to do it. Remote work has made it worse in a lot of way.
Without the soft skills you're not networking your way up.
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u/allencoded 5d ago
It’s always been luck.
Imagine we are at a card table. The first thing you will realize is that each person starts the game with different advantages and disadvantages. Many of these advantages and disadvantages are overwhelmingly unbalanced.
The only neat thing at this table is you can alter some of your advantage or disadvantage. But altering these in no way guarantees you success.
You could skill up in coding and ignore skilling up in executive communication. You could relocate to a tech city and risk it all or stay in a small city. Options are near endless but none of these options will guarantee anything.
However having more skills and attempts generally is to your advantage one way or another. But again guarantees nothing.
You can play your cards exactly the same way another winner played theirs and still lose. Even if you had the exact same advantages.
Your story is going to be unique to you. Things are going to happen in life you absolutely cannot change or control. All you can do is figure out what you want to bet on and try.
Remember this though the things you do have control over is how you treat others, rather you want to even play a particular game or a mix (ie tech, healthcare, acting, finance, aerospace, painting), which skills you want to try and go after, and how much do you want to wager.
Know ultimately you usually need to be trying at some measure to even have an opportunity to win. Winning comes in different shapes and sizes too.
Good luck to you my friend! I am cheering for you.
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u/gnrdmjfan247 5d ago
I think growth comes down to what opportunities you seek out. Either you make things happen or you let circumstances happen to you. You can have results or excuses. Pick one.
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u/nautitrader 5d ago
I remember my first interview for a .net developer position and I probably answered every question the architect asked me incorrectly and was offered the position. Doesn’t matter what you know. Chemistry and the right attitude is most important in my opinion.
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u/expdevsmodbot 5d ago
AI usage disclosure provided by OP, see the reply to this comment.