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Career-Stagnation-and-Growth

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Career Stagnation and Growth

The Fez problem — named by Michael Lopp in Managing Humans — describes a failure mode in which an engineer builds career security on top of a knowledge monopoly. Fez has become the sole owner of a critical system. Others depend on him. He interprets this dependency as indispensability and equates indispensability with job security.

Lopp’s counter-argument is stark: knowledge monopolies are temporary. The organisation will eventually build around the bottleneck — through documentation, tooling, hires, or re-architecture. When that happens, the engineer defined by exclusive ownership is left with diminished leverage. What felt like security was stagnation wearing a mask.

Two Types of Career Plateau

Academic research distinguishes two forms of career plateau, both relevant to the Fez dynamic:

  • Hierarchical plateau: Further promotion is perceived as unlikely — a ceiling has been reached
  • Job content plateau: Work has become unchallenging; the engineer is competent but no longer growing

The Fez problem maps primarily to job content plateau. Research consistently links it to lower organisational commitment, reduced job satisfaction, and increased turnover intention.

Why Knowledge Monopoly Fails the Engineer

The bus factor captures the organisational risk of knowledge concentration: organisations actively work to eliminate single points of failure. An engineer with a bus factor of 1 is not indispensable — they are a fragility the organisation is planning to retire.

Additionally, the knowledge hoarder traps themselves:

  • Cannot take vacation (system depends solely on them)
  • Cannot be promoted (who will maintain the system?)
  • Cannot transfer to more interesting work

Knowledge monopoly does not produce freedom — it produces a cage of one’s own construction.

The Manager’s Role

Lopp argues that career stagnation is a management failure, not merely an individual one. Annual review cadence is poorly matched to the rate at which stagnation develops; by the time an annual review surfaces the problem, the engineer is often already disengaged or interviewing.

The preventive stance requires:

  • Regular growth conversations: Not status check-ins, but explicit discussion of whether current work is challenging enough
  • Surfacing new problems proactively: Identifying opportunities before current work becomes routine
  • Reading Boredom-as-Retention-Signal: Early boredom signals are stagnation warnings, not mood fluctuations
  • Attention to Free-Electrons: High-autonomy engineers need an expanding problem space to remain engaged

The Mindset Dimension

Carol Dweck’s fixed vs. growth mindset research adds an individual layer: engineers who interpret their current expertise as sufficient resist growth challenges. The Fez posture — defending existing knowledge rather than acquiring new — is the organisational expression of fixed mindset. Managers who cultivate a growth orientation reduce the likelihood of Fez-like stagnation taking hold.

Sources

  • Lopp, Michael (2019). Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager. 3rd ed. Apress. ISBN: 978-1-4302-4314-4.

    • Chapter 41: “Avoiding the Fez” — primary framework; the Fez problem, knowledge monopoly as false security, proactive manager role

  • Yang, Baiyin et al. (2025). “Revisiting the relationship between career plateau and job performance: A social-cognitive perspective.” Applied Psychology: An International Review. DOI: 10.1111/apps.70002.

    • Social-cognitive analysis of career plateau types; job content plateau as mediator of disengagement and turnover intention; research basis for why content stagnation drives attrition

  • Jabrayilzade, Elgun and Ferda Nur Alpaslan Tuglular (2022). “Bus Factor In Practice.” arXiv:2202.01523.

    • Empirical study of bus factor in real software projects; knowledge concentration as measurable organisational risk; engineers with bus factor of 1 represent systemic fragility the organisation will resolve

  • Dweck, Carol S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House. ISBN: 978-0-345-47232-8.

    • Fixed vs. growth mindset framework; fixed mindset as the individual psychological substrate of Fez-like knowledge monopoly; organisations that cultivate growth mindset reduce stagnation risk

  • Allen, Tammy D. et al. (2021). “A meta-analytic study of subjective career plateaus.” Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 129. DOI: 10.1016/j.jvb.2021.103611.

    • Meta-analysis confirming career plateau is positively associated with turnover intention and negatively associated with job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and in-role performance

Note

This content was drafted with assistance from AI tools for research, organization, and initial content generation. All final content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and edited by the author to ensure accuracy and alignment with the author’s intentions and perspective.

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