Professional Development

Today we filled in forms in preparation for our upcoming professional development discussions. This year I found it far more difficult to list "career aspirations" and "development needs". My instinct was to write that my career aspirations are to get another job, but that probably wouldn't be very productive. I think that the past year has made me even more cynical than I was before.

So then I decided my short-term aspiration is to be a C++ guru. My tech lead convinced me that "specialist" is better HR-speak than guru. But by listing this as my aspiration, it will hopefully give me more opportunities to improve my technical skills. Otherwise they would just make a tech lead.

One would think that becoming a tech lead would be a Good Thing, but recently I've been convinced otherwise (especially where I work). I've been designated the successor to our tech lead for when if he leaves the company, so I've had the opportunity to be exposed to the unappealing underbelly of the tech lead world. Bad things about being a tech lead:

• Extra responsibility with no extra money.
• Harsher performance reviews - expectations are higher.
• Spend all day using Microsoft Office. Very little coding.

In previous years I've put down on the professional development form that I want C++ training and improved access to technical literature. Instead they sent me on a Java course and blocked ebay so we can't buy any more books. Fat lot of good.