This piece has nothing to do with programming. The problem is simply with jobs, and a common career mentality, which goes something like this: "If you do good w

This piece has nothing to do with programming. The problem is simply with jobs, and a common career mentality, which goes something like this: "If you do good work, your career will take care of you. If you weren't taken care of, then it's the career's fault." Nothing could be further from the truth. There are two things that boost careers. The first is the employer. Your employer determines your success through their success, and so your fate truly is in their hands as long as you are just doing work that is provided. Hence successful companies produce successful employees with successful careers. But to be good at this, you need to be a visionary employee. You must be able to tell apart the good entrepreneurs from the idiots. You need to become a good follower, not worker. The second is overreaching your job's boundaries and overachieving. This is what catches a lot of people, because it's being non-complacent when that's all that is being asked of you. It's the ability to demarginalize yourself because jobs are maginalizing, not people. If you fit a better job, your career will take you there. Either a good employer will recognize your worth, or you will recognize the worthlessness of your employer and move on. I have this extremely strong hunch that we all rise to our potential. And when I see someone complaining of how little they've accomplished, in more cases than not, they will make excuses, talk of regrets, and list all the bad luck and negative circumstances that surrounded their demise. Rarely do I hear them admit how bad they sucked, or how bad they compromised, or how they let it happen because they didn't act otherwise. "I am still just a programmer." That's you marginalizing yourself. Mark Zuckerberg was just a programmer. But you become more not by fitting tighter into that cast. You become more by breaking it. Eventually people will stop calling you just a programmer. And if that's your employer, you either just got promoted, or fired.