Growth Takes Time

What you can do today if your career stalls

Welcome back to Path to Staff! If you’ve been here for a while, I often share tools for accelerating your growth. But as I reflect on my journey, I realized a key lesson: real growth takes time.

I get this question all the time: “How do I get to Staff Engineer quickly? How do I level up fast?” The idea of jumping from junior to staff in a few years sounds exciting (and I did it myself!), but there are also real reasons why you shouldn’t rush.

In today’s job market, promotions are both slower and rarer. Companies have the upper hand now, and employees are staying longer than before. When companies conduct layoffs, their internal talent pool shrinks, and now you’re competing with even stronger candidates (assuming you weren’t laid off).

It’s tough to feel stuck. Some days, I do too. But as I’ve reflected more over the past few years, I’ll share why growing too fast can work against you, and what you can do today if you feel like growth has stalled.