By J.M. Auron ACRW. Expert IT Resume Writer—Providing Professional IT Resume Writing Services for More than 15 Years.
Every IT professional faces forks in the road—times when you have to make a choice about your IT career path. These have to navigated with skill to help keep your IT career on track, moving forward—and moving forward in the right direction.
One of the most common of these decisions is whether to stay a hands-on, individual contributor or move into IT leadership.
For many IT professionals, this is a tough decision—and a very important one, with significant downstream consequences. In this article, I'd like to take a few minutes and give some ideas on how to navigate this crossroad in your IT career path—based on my more than 15 years of experience building one of the top professional IT resume writing services worldwide—and helping thousands of IT professionals.
A question-based approach to navigating your IT career path
I believe that the best way to approach career decisions—and many other decisions in life—is by asking yourself targeted questions that help clarity emerge.
So I'm going to propose some questions you can ask yourself—about your IT career, but more deeply about yourself—about what brings you the greatest satisfaction in your work.
I realize that's not a common approach these days—but I do believe that taking some time for introspection can keep you on the right IT path—and by that, I mean the career path that's going to be most fulfilling and most rewarding for you, both short and long-term.
Here's the first question you might want to consider:
Why did I choose an IT career?
This is a really important question to ask yourself—because the reason you got into IT will have a lot of impact on how your IT career path evolves.
That's because people get into IT careers for a lot of different reasons—and knowing your own motivations can make a big difference in making a sound career decision for the future.
Obviously, I talk to a lot of IT professionals, and the answers I hear most often are:"I like solving problems." "I like building things." Or, "I just like technology."
If your answers are similar to these, it can be an initial way to navigate your IT career path. But we need to go deeper, and look at the present and the future.
So here's the next broad question that I'd suggest you think about:
What makes me happiest in IT career right now?
And here are a couple of follow-up questions to help gain clarity on this. These questions will have a big impact on whether you want to move into IT leadership or remain an individual contributor.
First, you can ask yourself, "Do I want the satisfactions of solving problems myself, building things myself? Or do I want a larger scope?" This is really critical to help your decision process.
If your answer is that you like solving the problems yourself, that's an important guidepost on your IT career path.
If, however, you want to solve bigger problems, you may want to consider IT leadership.
Now, let's look at the other side of the coin:
What do I find frustrating in my IT career?
This is an important follow-up to the previous question—because no matter how much you may love your job, there are issues that aren't as satisfying. It's valuable to clarify those.
"Today, am I finding the hands-on work of an individual contributor satisfying or am I finding it limiting?"
In other words, do you find the lack of control, the lack of decision making authority as an individual contributor constraining? Or is that not a big deal for you?
If it's the latter, it may mean you're looking for broader scope and broader authority—and a move into IT leadership might be worth considering.
So, thinking of both pros and cons, you could ask:
How do I feel about technology leadership?
It's important to think about this.
Do you like leading technical teams, but find the politics, the HR, the conflicts to be draining? Of course, no one enjoys this side of leadership, but the question is how much of a drain you find it to be. If you can deal with it—it's a hassle, but building and leading teams in transformative projects is the greater satisfaction—then moving up could make sense.
But if you really, really, really hate this stuff, deep down in your very soul? The likelihood of being happy as IT manager, IT director, or CIO / CTO is a lot less likely.
Individual Contributor vs Technology Leadership: Real-World Tradeoffs (2025 Edition)
Daily Joy
Individual Contributor: Solving deep technical puzzles
Technology Leadership: Orchestrating team wins
Biggest Frustration
Individual Contributor: Limited scope/authority
Technology Leadership: Politics, HR, conflict
2025 Comp Range (US)
Individual Contributor: $180k–$450k (Staff+)
Technology Leadership: $250k–$600k+ (Director+)
New ways to think about your IT career path.
Frequently, we don't ask ourselves enough questions about our careers, what makes us happy, what makes us miserable. It's somehow "not practical."
But the questions I've suggested can be a good place to start in navigating next steps in your IT career path—and these questions are typical of the questions I ask clients both as an IT resume writer and a tech career coach. I've found that taking the time up front to reflect on these issues can save a lot of time down the line—and help avoid the missteps that can slow down your IT career path.
If you think that working through these questions in a coaching session could be helpful—or you know your direction, but want help with your IT resume? Just get in touch to schedule an initial conversation.