the job trifecta

the three core factors when choosing your next gig

people. craft. product. 7 internships later I finally feel like I cracked the code of understanding the key factors I value when choosing a job (but who knows, maybe I'll look at this 10 years later and think differently!)

People: The relationships, support, and collaboration within your team and the company are fundamental to the job. You love working closely with your teammates and are most excited about working with people you are inspired by and can learn from everyday.

Craft: You're in the role because you love what you do independently of the industry it's applied to. You enjoy the technical problems you get to solve, and the specifics of getting deeper in your craft. Whether it's getting to code in your favorite language, mastering 3d design tools or diving deep into analyzing companies, you enjoy what you get to work on day-to-day and are committed to the skill.

Product: You have a burning passion for the problem the company is solving for - if they weren't building it, you would. You find any role in this field really exciting and love reading up on the latest developments. If you got another job after this, it would be in a similar industry.

filling in the gaps

Some people might lie heavily on one area, others might be a mix of two, and some might be lucky and check the boxes on what they're looking for in all three. If you find yourself missing out on other categories, you can find ways in your life to complement it.

If you're lacking creativity in your role, you could explore creative pursuits through hobbies, creative writing, or finding other ways to practice your craft outside of work.
If you find that you don't resonate with people at work, host events with people in a similar career stage as you, attend events in the city you live in, or converse with people who share common interests with you on the internet.
If the problem space of the company you're working for isn't something that keeps you up at night, spend your Sunday mornings reading up and exploring the areas you find interesting, and maybe publish your own take on it.

Sometimes people don't need all three. They have one of these factors and they're satisfied, and that's completely fine - this might even make it easier for them to separate themselves from work. Founders sneakily enough create the exact role for themselves that hits all of these factors, where they need to be excited about what they're doing, passionate about the problem they're solving, and need to recruit a team they can't wait to spend every day in the trenches with.

Eventually if you keep chipping away at your passions, learn to enjoy what you do, and produce great work, you'll naturally find your people, build your craft, and get to work on the problems you're interested in.

growth as a wildcard

There's also the wildcard factor of growth. I didn't add it to the trifecta well, because it can't be a trifecta with four options. But it's mainly because growth is unpredictable and hard to optimize for, yet remains a valuable upside.

For example, taking the leap and working as an early employee at a small start-up can provide immense growth and challenges in a short period of time, but you still need to have at least one other part of the trifecta (craft, product, people) that align for it to be worthwhile.
Similarly, trying a completely new role with higher responsibility also takes you up a notch on the personal growth end.

However, it's often difficult to predict which experiences will have a profound impact on growing your career and which ones might show their merits much later.

connection to other mental models

A friend, when reviewing the first draft of this post, told me it reminded her of the concept of Ikigai, another mental model I love to revisit. It's a union of what you're good at, what you love, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for, all coming together to find your life's purpose.

I like to think of Ikigai as step (1) in figuring out the type of work you want to pursue, and the job trifecta as step (2) when actually evaluating different opportunities and determing what's best for you.

how the job trifecta looks like for me right now

For me, I find my current job a big combination of 1 - people and 2 - craft. I hecking love the role I'm doing - design engineering/prototyping. I wrote about the specifics of why I’m drawn to it here. On the craft end I'm looking forward to sharpening my technical, design, people, and general "bring cool things to life super fast" skills.

The people are also really awesome - I have a great manager and so many smart teammates I can't wait to learn from. While I do love the product and am generally really interested in the creator/consumer space, the opportunities for growth in my craft and supportive teammates outweigh the product factor for me.

My interests in venture rely heavily on 1 - people and 3 - product/industry. I generally enjoy analyzing new market spaces, meeting with early-stage founders, ideating on what the future looks like, and the opportunity to work alongside seasoned operators who've had many years in the game. However, the day-to-day craft of sending emails, outreach, and getting into all the details aren't what I find the most fulfilling, which is why my full-time role as an engineer balances it out and gives me the best of both worlds.

In the early stage of my career, both people and craft are really important to me. I want to work with supportive people I can learn from, and be mentored by those who will challenge me to be my best everyday. I still have so much more to learn especially in my area of craft, and I want to focus on growing those skills and iterating through experimentation before I dive head-first into what problem I want to solve next. I’m excited to see how my job trifecta will evolve over time.

Thank you for reading! I'm curious about what's in your trifecta and what you've learned over time on the things you value in a role. Feel free to comment or shoot me a message :)

Special thanks to Valentina for her feedback on this piece!

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2024-07-15