An often unspoken challenge in the field of software engineering is your ability to intentionally navigate your career. It’s natural to get bogged down in the details of the next critical project – intense planning, implementation, developing technical skills and coordinating with stakeholders. But occasionally you need to take a step back to appreciate the wholeness and direction of your career.

Continually navigating from one project to the next is of course the essential requirement of the job. However questioning and appreciating how it fits into the bigger picture is important. I felt myself caught in this endless cycle without much intentionality and was fortunate enough to have a manager with whom I could discuss it. They asked if I had a coach or mentor figure and my answer was no, so they suggested a connection they knew well and thought would be a good fit and put us in touch. This leads to I believe the is first – and in my opinion most important – attribute of a good coach: an outside perspective. the coach was a senior leader outside of my organisation and could bring an independent and unbiased view to our discussions.

I wasn’t quite sure how to approach this – I of course did not want to waste my coach’s time so I would find time to prepare specific topics for each 1 hour session every other week. At least at the start, having a plan in place was crucial to build rapport and a relationship. You can’t expect to have in depth discussions about your difficulties and challenges with a stranger. Here are some of the topics we explored early on:

• Confidence and tackling imposter syndrome.
• Navigating conflict – strong opinions loosely held
• The path to leadership – and having a good reason for wanting to pursue it
• Leading without authority
• How to handle burnout

However I think what pleasantly surprised me as these discussions evolved, was that they weren’t always just driven by my own challenges – in fact, being engaged and understanding what challenges your coach is facing and how they navigate them was really valuable. In a way it broke a barrier of the pedestal in which you hold them – although much senior and more experienced, they also have situations to navigate and really probing their thought process for how to do so was extremely insightful. Aside from specific improvement tips, I like to think these discussions worked their way into my subconscious and I apply a bit of this on my day to day.

I listened to a podcast about effective coaching (HBR IdeaCast – What Great Coaching Looks Like), and immediately appreciated the values discussed. One which resonated with me was the ability of a good coach to identify the correct “dosage” of advice to provide – I know I sometimes went into my meeting with my coach hoping for a quick fix or an immediate solution, but I quickly learned that I needed to approach the conversations without this mentality. Instead, it’s important to expect that there’s a path out, but not the exact steps to it. This approach helped me grow because it brought together a combination of:

• my own analytical and personal approach
• thinking about “what would they do”
• and the tiny nuggets of advice they offered

All of these together would help me figure out the next steps by myself – definitely the most rewarding way to get there.

Having a coach has been immensely rewarding for me, and definitely contributed to my professional growth. I always found myself coming away from our conversations lighter and with a sense of clarity – whether that was because I just needed to vent to someone outside of the context, ask for advice on navigating change or dive into a specific topic I found myself struggling with but couldn’t figure out actionable steps. If you don’t have one already then I highly recommend reaching out to your team leader or manager to find out if they have anyone they could recommend.