a 6-week cohort course
Build a growth engine for your career in tech
- Become a sought-after expert and never worry about your next gig again
- Learn how to grow your skills, connections and portfolio using only 10% of your time
- Work in a small group with other ambitious tech professionals supported by an experienced mentor
I’ve coached, managed and trained people in:
This course is for engineers, designers and managers who want to increse their impact, level and salary.
“I steadily increased my impact to the point of being promoted to Staff Engineer in one of the fastest growing companies in Europe.”
— Ryszard, Staff R/Shiny Engineer
“I greatly improved my relationship-building skills and improved how I share useful knowledge and presents myself through my technical blog.”
— Jędrzej, ML Engineer
The job market sucks right now.
But that doesn't need to be a problem for you.
Grow your career without burning out
Your Career Engine
⚙️ make useful things and learn from them
⚙️ share what you’re learning
⚙️ connect with people who care about what you do
Your Career Capital
💰 an impressive portfolio of amazing work
💰 skills that make you so good, they can’t ignore you
💰 a network of healthy professional relationships
Gear up your career engine in 6 weeks
Work with a small group of 4-5 people within the larger cohort.
Study one learning module per week that should take no more than 30 minutes.
Join 6 group sessions led by the course creator.
Each week you will
🤺 Develop skills – try something new or do something useful better than before.
✍️ Build up a portfolio – publish at least one piece of useful content.
🕸️ Grow your network – connect with one person who cares about what you do.
Before
🤔 unsure what to do
🤹 distracted, hard to focus
🤷♂️ underappreciated
😬 worried about the future
After
🤺 confident about next steps
🤩 finding your unique contribution
🤝 connecting with the right people
🤸 flexible in the face of uncertainty
Learn from an experienced mentor
Hi, I’m Michał Parkoła and I am the founder of Grow Together Academy and the creator of this course.
Over the years I’ve managed to build an interesting career despite being a 3x college dropout. Yup, I studied physics, mathematics and computer science and for various reasons graduated none of them.
I had to get creative. I had to rely on equal parts curiosity and grit.
In the end it worked worked out – in 2011 I started my own successfull Agile training & consulting company called Fluid Circle.
Throughout my career I’ve coached, managed and trained people at companies that included Google, Sabre, 9LivesData, McKinsey & Company, and most recently – Appsilon.
And now I’ve started Grow Together Academy to share the best lessons I’ve learned with you, even if you’re following a non-traditional path.
15+ years of experience
300+ people trained
100+ books distilled
Sign up for a free consult
Let’s talk about your goals and aspirations and the obstacles that stand in your way.
I will help you clarify the situation and plan your next steps, no strings attached.
If you want more help to get there faster and with less stress, we’ll figure out together if this program is right for you.
What topics are we going to cover?
The exact schedule will be customized based on the needs of actual participants, but here’s a preliminary list:
- Getting so good they can’t ignore you – deliberate practice for knowledge workers.
- The Ship/Learn/Next pattern, the value of consistency, packaging things you work on anyway, developing good taste.
- Your career compass – how to get unstuck and decide what to do next in uncertain situations.
- Understanding people for fun and profit – the Listen Ask Observe pattern.
- Making it easy for people to understand you – The importance of titles. The pyramid principle. Scanability.
- Nurturing healthy professional relationships – 1on1 relationships, joining communities, starting communities.
What do you get after completing the course?
If you go through the course and put in the work you will emerge with a solid foundation of an effective career flywheel that will help you enjoy a fulfulling career regardless of how easy or hard the job market is at a particular moment.
This will include:
- a string of at least 6 interesting pieces of content that form the seed of your personal monopoly, the highlight of your expertise that will attract employers, mentors and top-tier co-workers,
- new connections in your professional network,
- skills and habits of learning, communication and content-production that will support you throughout the rest of your career.
How is this program better then other courses?
Here are some advantages I’m keeping in mind while building this course:
- I want to make it as action-oriented as possible. You will DO and MAKE things. No passive consumption.
- The course is highly-personalized. We have a system but we discuss how to customize and apply it to help YOU.
- The course is based on small groups working together. It’s crazy how much difference that can make. I still have friends from a cohort-based course I took in 2020.
- This course is built on an internet-aware career strategy that looks quite different than traditional career advice. For example it pays to develop a personal monopoly — to be the absolute best in a very narrow niche. It might not define your whole professional persona but it pays so so well to have a hook that can pull people in.
- The price will only go up in the future.
- If you don’t like the course you can quit at any time and get your money back, no questions asked. Ok, some questions asked to improve the course for future students, but the refund does not depend on the answers.
What are the drawbacks and limitations of this course?
I admit, it’s not all roses and rainbows:
- While the course is designed to be as easy to implement as possible, it does require some time and effort to build new skills, overcome potential obstacles and sometimes challenge deeply held beliefs. It’s not a get rich quick scheme.
- The course can easily pay for itself many times over, but it does cost some money up front. It’s not for someone who is low on cash and desperately needs a new job right now.
- The course is based on my extensive experience building up my own career and helping many others build up theirs. However this particular incarnation is new and not everything is perfect yet. You get more personalized attention at the cost of some rough edges here and there.