Why I interviewed even when I was happy

Things can change… very fast and you should always keep your options open.

I was working at a company I really liked. I had great managers and a supportive team, I enjoyed the work I was doing and felt like I grew so much as an engineer in a short amount of time. I saw myself growing there and staying long term. It was good… until it wasn’t.

One thing I look back on now is the fact that even when I was happy where I was, I would always do interviews. Not necessarily because I was intending on leaving but because I was using them to identify areas that I needed to grow in and how I was positioned in the market.

I didn’t think I would be needing those interviews any time soon. I was happy and had been put forward for promotion earlier than expected and thought that would be my path to becoming a senior engineer.

When I was told I wouldn’t be promoted as I hadn’t been at the company long enough, it was a shame but I could wait. I then received some not-so-great feedback a few months later, feedback that wasn’t given directly to me so there hadn’t even been a chance for improvement. I asked whether it would impact my promotion the following quarter and was assured it wouldn’t but when the time came, I was told they couldn’t justify promoting me because of that feedback along with additional feedback that had again not been shared with me directly.

That was all it took to change my view of things. The growth I had envisioned for myself for the next year or so suddenly seemed out of reach. It wasn’t even about the promotion anymore, it was the uncertainty and the constant moving target to become a senior engineer. I no longer knew what “good enough” looked like or even how to get there. The environment that once felt enriching and supportive slowly started making me feel like I was walking on eggshells. Even though I felt like I was doing good work, it still somehow wasn’t enough and no one could clearly tell me what “enough” actually was.

That’s when I realised why those practice interviews mattered. While internally my confidence shattered and I became hesitant to speak out and voice my opinions, externally I was reminded of my value. When you do these practice interviews, because theres no pressure to go above and beyond to get the job, it often ends up feeling like a normal conversation. The nerves dont kick in as much and you can actually focus on sharing your experience in its entirety without worrying about saying the ‘right’ thing. I was being asked thoughtful questions about my experience. I was being told that the work I thought was small or boring was actually impactful. It reminded me that one company’s timeline isn’t a universal measure of my ability and that growth doesn’t always look the same in every environment.

Here are some things I’ve learnt from these interviews:

• A lot of the time I’m doing the right things in terms of engineering experience but I’m not communicating it in a way that gets my point across clearly.


• I actually know a lot more than I think and I find myself talking about that seemingly boring piece of work I did a few months ago to rotate a bunch of EC2 SSH keys as valuable experience that taught me a lot about cloud security for example.


• I can identify questions that I struggled to answer and what I can do to bridge that gap in my knowledge.

I still believe you can be happy somewhere and committed but those things aren’t mutually exclusive with keeping your options open. I realised that interviewing isn’t about leaving, it’s about staying ready so that when things suddenly change or don’t go as planned, you can be prepared for what’s next in your journey.

The worst position to be in is one where you’ve let your confidence quietly depend on a single outcome. I had placed so much emphasis in this one promotion that when I didn’t achieve it, it felt like I wasn’t good enough to begin with.

Interviewing even when you’re happy isn’t disloyal, it’s self awareness and preparedness to ensure that if the ground shifts beneath you, you already know you can stand somewhere else.