Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years?

During my university days, I had to complete an unpaid internship as part of my program. I remember going for an on-site interview at a company, where I was asked the infamous question, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

At that time, I didn’t feel the need to impress anyone and responded honestly with something along the lines of “definitely not here.” While they appreciated my honesty, it didn’t result in a callback.

In a business environment, it’s often advisable to provide a more polished response. Something like, “I envision myself growing with this company both as an individual and as a valued team member. I hope to contribute to the success and expansion of the company for the next 20 years.”

However, personally, I find this question somewhat pointless. Let’s take a look back at where I was 5 years ago in 2016. At that time, I was primarily focused on building rich-client JavaScript applications using Ember for various clients. Additionally, I was running a CMS plugins business (which is now closed) and working part-time as a contractor for a popular flat-file CMS called Grav.

It’s worth noting that my current endeavors are completely different from what I was doing back then. If I were to put myself in the shoes of the 2016 version of me, I would have never imagined that I would be successfully organizing JavaScript courses in 2021.

Back then, I had a modest Twitter following of around 900, minimal website traffic with just 15 blog posts, no email newsletter, no established audience, and no awareness of what would later explode as the “creator economy,” of which I am now a part.

If you had asked me in 2016 where I saw myself in 5 years, my imagination would have likely conjured up a better version of my existing circumstances. Perhaps my software business would have soared, generating a monthly revenue of €10,000, or the CMS company I worked for would have been acquired or gained such significant traction that it rivaled Next.js (which didn’t even exist at that time), leading to heavy investment and me managing a team of 50 as a CTO.

But here I am, doing something entirely different. Back then, I was immersed in GitHub issues and the community chat, spending my days debugging code and assisting developers with their site and app development.

Now, I am fortunate to have transitioned into a full-time role where I help aspiring developers. I absolutely love it.

In the next 5 years, who knows what I’ll be doing? It could be another radical shift or a gradual improvement on my current path, such as helping even more people.

Regardless, I have embraced living in the present, focusing on doing my best without spreading myself too thin or engaging in too many side projects that distract me from my goal of assisting developers in becoming better at their craft.

tags: [“career”, “future”, “self-improvement”, “aspirations”]