My younger self only cared about money.
If Company A offered me more money than Company B, I’d join Company A in a heartbeat.
Things like culture, location, work-life balance, a company’s trajectory, the people I’d be working with, and the industry didn’t matter much to me. I was a mercenary to a fault.
I know, I know. I’m not like that anymore. I’ve learned the hard way that salary is only one piece of the puzzle. There are a lot of factors that influence whether an opportunity ends up being good for your career and life.
Over the years, I’ve realized there’s one factor that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough: whether a company is growing.
It influences how quickly new opportunities become available, whether you can take on more responsibility, and how fast your career can progress. Jordan’s story reminded me of this.
She made the observation that many companies expect employees to spend a certain amount of time in a role before progressing.
What’s interesting is that progression isn’t always tied to capability. More often, it’s tied to things like tenure, promotion cycles, budgets, and whether there’s an open role to move into.
At many larger organizations, there are job levels, approval processes, promotion cycles, and headcount constraints. Even if your manager thinks you’re doing a great job, there may simply not be a path available yet. The next role might not be open. The budget might not exist. The team might not be growing.
This is a big reason why I’ve always found startups interesting.
When a company is growing quickly, problems appear faster than people can solve them. New customers need support. Processes need to be built. Teams need to be formed.
Growth creates opportunities, and someone needs to step into them.
I’ve seen people take on responsibilities that would have required multiple promotions elsewhere. And often, it’s not because they were dramatically more talented than their peers. Their company was growing, and they happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Of course, startups come with their own tradeoffs. You’ve probably heard the cliché about wearing many hats. Some are pure chaos. Some fail. Some provide very little structure or support.
But I think many people underestimate how much company choice influences career outcomes.
Two people can be equally capable and equally hardworking. One joins a company where progression is slow, structured, and predictable. The other joins a company that is doubling in size and creating opportunities as it grows.
Three years later, their careers can look completely different.
When people evaluate jobs, they usually focus on the role, salary, benefits, or company brand.
I think they should spend more time looking at whether the company itself is growing.
The more people I interview, the more I realize that career progression is not purely a function of talent, effort, or ambition.
It’s also heavily influenced by the environment you’re operating in.
Sometimes the fastest way to grow your career isn’t to work harder but to put yourself in a place that’s growing too!
P.S. Most people figure out their career path by committing to it and hoping for the best. GradSimple Insiders exists for those who want to know what they are stepping into first. Every month, we sit down with a manager or hiring insider and get their unfiltered take on their industry. What’s shifting, what’s worth pursuing, and what they would tell someone trying to break in right now.
