Kun Chen, who at various times worked as an engineer at Microsoft, Meta, and Atlassian, shared a simple method that helped him honestly assess his own development.
Kun Chen, who at various times worked as an engineer at Microsoft, Meta, and Atlassian, shared a simple method that helped him honestly assess his own development.
He talked about this in the podcast «A Life Engineered» and in a comment to Business Insider.
Every month he asked himself one question: «What did I do this month that I couldn’t do last month?» When, after six years at Microsoft, he couldn’t give himself an honest answer for several months in a row, he realized he had stopped growing.
According to him, most people wait until they miss a raise to realize they are stagnating. But this is a late signal — you can feel the lack of growth much earlier.
Chen emphasizes that stagnation is not an automatic reason to quit. It’s a good idea to talk to your manager about changing projects or roles first. But if the company can’t provide a new level of development, it may be time to look for a different environment.
He himself left Meta, returned to Microsoft with new experience, and set about bootstrapping a new gaming platform. Both decisions, he says, turned out to be the right ones — both financially and for personal growth.
Chen also notes that the monthly self-test is especially relevant now, amid the rapid changes in software engineering due to AI. According to him, «the world is changing very quickly, and we have to constantly ask ourselves questions.»
