If you read part one, you know how it ended. Nobody was going to hand me a direction. If I wanted one, I had to go and find it myself.
Before that though, there's a question worth sitting with first — one most career advice skips entirely: where do you actually want to go?
A lot of developers stuck at mid-level are trying to grow without knowing which direction they're trying to grow in. And that matters, because the answer shapes everything that follows — the projects you ask to be involved in, the conversations worth having, the things worth reading. Trying to close a gap without knowing what's on the other side isn't progress.
Do You Know Where You're Going?
Some developers already have an answer. They know they want backend, or DevOps, or mobile, or a particular domain. If that's you, skip ahead — the next section is about building on that. This one's for developers who don't have an answer yet, and have been quietly assuming that's a problem.
The answer is pretty simple: do things. Try as many things as possible until you find the thing that really excites you.
Put your hand up for the project outside your usual lane. The ticket nobody's claimed. The cross-team piece that needs a developer. Ask your manager for opportunities to try something new.
If those opportunities are lacking, there's plenty you can do on your own time - but only if it excites you. Don't spend your down time on a second job. There are plenty of free MOOCs (massive open online course) on a range of topics. Open source projects to explore, and even contribute to. Content creators sharing their knowledge and passion.
You might not find yours immediately, but ruling things out is just as valuable. Once you've got even a rough direction, everything after this gets easier to act on.
Build Your Own Curriculum
Once you have a direction, it's time to find the knowledge and tools taking you that way.
Tutorials are an obvious starting point, particularly if you're focusing on a specific tech. Blogs can be a valuable resource - there are plenty of engineers keen to share their knowledge on how to get started.
Talk to seniors and tech leads, but ask specific questions. Tell them where you want to go and ask how to get there. Most seniors have forgotten what it felt like to be mid-level; giving them a destination is often what unlocks a useful answer. If you don't have the right seniors around you, online communities can fill the gap.
Look at job listings for the roles you want — not to apply, just to read. The skills that keep showing up across multiple listings, regardless of company, are the ones worth paying attention to.
What Nobody Tells You to Learn
Some things matter no matter which direction you pick, and nobody tells you that explicitly because everyone assumes you'll magically pick them up.
Source control, testing, CI/CD, containerisation, cloud technologies, and now AI. Depending on the organisation and your chosen specialisation, you may not need to use all of these, but you should understand how they work, and how they interact with what you do.
Being able to work in a team is a frequently misunderstood and undervalued ability. Writing code and documentation that doesn't need you in the room to explain it. Breaking down features into decoupled tasks that can be worked on in parallel. Being able to resolve merge conflicts, or cherry pick commits. Understanding how to submit a good pull request, and equally how to give a meaningful review.
Sometimes The Way Out Is To Move On
Sometimes the plateau isn't something you can push beyond from the inside. You can ask the right questions, put your hand up for the uncomfortable work, and still find that there isn't a path forward.
A business that doesn't invest in developing its people does both itself and them a disservice. You stagnate. They lose the developer you could have become.
If you've genuinely exhausted what your current role can give you, looking elsewhere isn't disloyal. It's the next step on the same journey. The skills gap you've identified, the direction you've found, the questions you now know how to ask — those travel with you. A new environment with new people, new problems, or simply more investment in your growth can accelerate your progression in ways that staying put never will.
You Were Never Actually Stuck
The mid-level plateau feels like stasis. It isn't. It's the point in the journey where the road stops being obvious and you have to figure out which direction you're actually heading.
The developers who come out the other side aren't the ones who waited for someone to hand them a map. They're the ones who started paying attention, asked better questions of the people around them, and were honest with themselves when the environment they were in had stopped being the right one.
Find what excites you, keep asking questions, make your own path.
If you're in the middle of this right now, drop a comment. Someone else on the same journey might need to hear it.
