take 3 months off and do a project that requires a new skill this may be a personal observation (not sure it's industry-wide), but companies are averse to lett

take 3 months off and do a project that requires a new skill this may be a personal observation (not sure it's industry-wide), but companies are averse to letting in-house people apply new skills on the job. They can even be averse to reading and experimentation during work time. Even when they're cool with it, the work day isn't structured for heads-down time. Most managers have little patience for intentional 'try fail' cycles. structured work is especially hostile to category jumping -- for example, I switched from high-speed finance to web, I picked up marketing & branding knowledge, from self-started projects. It would be hard to seriously try these at a job but they've paid dividends in my career. there's a forgiveness / permission spectrum here but interrupting an ongoing job for 'mini grad school' has been the way that I keep fresh and make vertical jumps in my programming / tech management career.