I'm trying to word this also as not to sound like a corny permie interview question, i.e.: "where do you see yourself in 5 years time?" and failing dismally... I fear this may be the start of the realisation of a mid-life criss, or the beginnings of feeling redundant as technology and processes leave behind the ways of working of my early career.
I've been feeling lately (well, not that lately - since around the beginning of Covid), that the traditional project roles are disappearing, and that change functions rely more on technical change and deliver technology-focused change in isolation, as opposed to traditionally working with business users. "Change fatigue" is a cliche often heard in many of my contracts/permie jobs, where the business are simply too busy doing their day-to-day to support large change projects.
Agile ways of working have seen the reduction - at least, in my experience - of the BA's role. Once upon a time, a BA had months to go away and collate the requirements and produce significant artefacts that would go through multiple rounds of feedback and iterations before landing on the perfect document, only to then have to work on multiple change requests as requirements shifted or the business realised what they'd originally asked for wasn't actually what anyone wanted or needed. Now, the BA seems to be shoehorned in between a Product Owner and Developers, and much of my time seems to involve hacking out a few words in JIRA, where detailed lengthy descriptions of how the system should work are no longer wanted or needed, with developers building multiple prototypes until the PO is happy and ready to push into production. As a Business Analyst with a business change focus first and IT change very much second, I find myself feeling threatened.
As a contractor, but with two or three decades left in the working world, I find myself wondering where next? Can I see myself doing the same job in five years? Probably not, if I'm honest I feel burnt out, disillusioned and dissatisfied with my "career", although I'm well-renumerated and rarely busy. I don't see my role as bringing particular value anymore, which as someone who charges a day rate is concerning. I'm unhappy in my career, and don't feel like I do a good job, yet weirdly I've always had positive feedback. I've always been regarded as a safe pair of hands who hiring managers seem to like having around the place, without feeling like I'm really doing a good job. Friends/family are baffled what I'm worried about - well-paid, largely remote and not busy, I should be loving life, but instead I find myself worrying about my self-worth and mental health in a way which I have never done before. I'm otherwise lucky to have a great home life and am very happy, but work is the one area I'd change if I could/knew how. I fantasise often about retraining into a new role/area, preferably operations or something that would keep me busy day-to-day, but I'm at a loss what I could do that wouldn't involve a significant pay cut.
So as a tech/change superstar contractor, where do you see yourself in the next few years? Are you eyeing up a cushy move to a perm role to see you through to retirement? Have you got a clever side-hustle that you're hoping to scale and retire from your main job forever (preferably that I can steal)? Are you retraining? Are you happy? What's your 360 assessment (or whatever horrible terminology HR or whatever they call themselves at your company use to describe self-reflection!) of your career?
I've been feeling lately (well, not that lately - since around the beginning of Covid), that the traditional project roles are disappearing, and that change functions rely more on technical change and deliver technology-focused change in isolation, as opposed to traditionally working with business users. "Change fatigue" is a cliche often heard in many of my contracts/permie jobs, where the business are simply too busy doing their day-to-day to support large change projects.
Agile ways of working have seen the reduction - at least, in my experience - of the BA's role. Once upon a time, a BA had months to go away and collate the requirements and produce significant artefacts that would go through multiple rounds of feedback and iterations before landing on the perfect document, only to then have to work on multiple change requests as requirements shifted or the business realised what they'd originally asked for wasn't actually what anyone wanted or needed. Now, the BA seems to be shoehorned in between a Product Owner and Developers, and much of my time seems to involve hacking out a few words in JIRA, where detailed lengthy descriptions of how the system should work are no longer wanted or needed, with developers building multiple prototypes until the PO is happy and ready to push into production. As a Business Analyst with a business change focus first and IT change very much second, I find myself feeling threatened.
As a contractor, but with two or three decades left in the working world, I find myself wondering where next? Can I see myself doing the same job in five years? Probably not, if I'm honest I feel burnt out, disillusioned and dissatisfied with my "career", although I'm well-renumerated and rarely busy. I don't see my role as bringing particular value anymore, which as someone who charges a day rate is concerning. I'm unhappy in my career, and don't feel like I do a good job, yet weirdly I've always had positive feedback. I've always been regarded as a safe pair of hands who hiring managers seem to like having around the place, without feeling like I'm really doing a good job. Friends/family are baffled what I'm worried about - well-paid, largely remote and not busy, I should be loving life, but instead I find myself worrying about my self-worth and mental health in a way which I have never done before. I'm otherwise lucky to have a great home life and am very happy, but work is the one area I'd change if I could/knew how. I fantasise often about retraining into a new role/area, preferably operations or something that would keep me busy day-to-day, but I'm at a loss what I could do that wouldn't involve a significant pay cut.
So as a tech/change superstar contractor, where do you see yourself in the next few years? Are you eyeing up a cushy move to a perm role to see you through to retirement? Have you got a clever side-hustle that you're hoping to scale and retire from your main job forever (preferably that I can steal)? Are you retraining? Are you happy? What's your 360 assessment (or whatever horrible terminology HR or whatever they call themselves at your company use to describe self-reflection!) of your career?
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