When to Make a Career Change
Why I left Twitch
Every year I make a point to check in on my career happiness. It’s a key part of my framework for how I approach career decisions. Career happiness is a term that encompasses both my career goals and my personal fulfillment with a current role. I do this by asking myself questions like “what makes me happiest when I’m working?” and “what do I care about most in my career right now?” The ‘right now’ is particularly important because our lives are constantly changing, and this process should reflect where you currently are in your personal life and career path. For example, I just became a mom in November, and I waited until after I returned to work in March to do my yearly check in. I wanted to see how working full-time as a new mom would impact my feelings and thoughts about my career, and I was surprised to see how things unfolded!
Two months ago I left Twitch after working there for 6 years. I joined as a product manager when we had less than 300 employees, and I left as VP of Community products, serving over 30 million daily viewers. Many people were surprised because they thought I would never leave the company. It wasn’t an easy decision. I loved the people, the fun culture, the impact our products had, and our loyal users. My framework empowered me to take this big step with confidence.
I start the process by creating a list of the 5-10 things that contribute to my current career happiness. Here are a few of mine:
Having a steep learning and growth curve
Working in a product area I’m passionate about
Making a positive impact through the work I’m doing
It’s okay (and encouraged!) to include things like compensation, commute time, company culture, etc. No one has to see this list but you, so be honest with yourself! I put the list in a spreadsheet and add a column to rank the importance of each item on a scale of 1-5, where a score of 5 matters the most to me. Then I add a column to rate my current role (also on a scale of 1-5) against each of the items on my list. I multiply the two numbers, add up the total, and give a final grade based on the % of the highest possible score. I go through this process every year, and in the past Twitch has always been 80% or higher. However, for the first time in 6 years, Twitch came back with a low score. (note: if this process sounds familiar, that’s probably because it is! It’s called a KT analysis, and you can read my friend’s excellent and in-depth post about it here).
So what does it mean? I realized some key things by going through this mental exercise. First, It gave me a rational explanation for feelings and actions that I was starting to notice in myself. Second, while I was very happy in my role, I knew it would deteriorate as the gap between my current role and career happiness grew larger over time. Third, it made me confident about making a big career change, even though it was emotionally a very difficult decision. I mentioned earlier that I was surprised by how motherhood played a role in my process. I had expected that I would want to be in a comfortable role (a known quantity!), giving me flexibility as I balanced my career and the transition to motherhood. However, I found that if I had to spend time away from my baby, I wanted to make the most of it. Working in a role that wasn’t contributing to my career happiness was not making the most of my time, and that was the final deciding point. It was time for me to leave Twitch.
It was important to make my decision about Twitch independent from other job opportunities. Comparing other companies at the same time complicates the framework and confuses emotions. I didn’t explore external opportunities until after I decided it was time to make a change. I then repurposed the same framework to figure out what to do next. It enabled me to pick which companies to interview with, and which roles would most likely be a great mutual fit. I spent my time wisely as I went through the interview process and was confident about the role I ultimately chose. It was validating and empowering to get my dream job 6 months into motherhood. I look forward to both my new role, and raising my son as I tackle this exciting challenge.
In summary, you should:
Check in with yourself regularly about what contributes to your career happiness
Compare your current situation to your ideal one
If there’s a big gap, make a change before things go downhill
Use the same framework to select the best new role for you
It's hard to decide when to make a career change. It can be intimidating, emotional, and confusing. This framework can bring clarity and confidence to your next big decision, just like it did for me!
This is terrific advice. Thank you for sharing your approach.