[Greamy]

My mom used to tell me when I was young to never run after money and choose a career in which I could do something that made me happy. As working on something you enjoy means you'll do it with passion, that will be seen by others in the quality of your output, so money (or fame, or whatever you're after) will come naturally. I was around 5, and video games was what made me happy. XD

As I grew up and learned more about the field, I figured it's not necessarily video games that I want to make, but definitely software science.

I ended up in electronic engineering because I was curious about how computers work at a low level. After that I ended up in ML/DL/data science because it looked cool and wasn't that hard to understand for me as I had all the math prerequisites from the EE degree.

In conclusion, I would say that, for me at least, the path came quite naturally, and every step I took in my career made sense at the time. I never tried to really force a long-term plan on my career, so whenever a move or a change felt natural for what I wanted, I made it. I would say I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing now, so at least it worked for me.

[bruce511]

There are two schools of thought. 1. Follow the money. 2. Follow your passion.

It's hard to know which is right (and I suspect both are), because my passion and the money are in the same place (tech).

Which means folk in tech (myself included) can successfully anecdote either branch.

Personally I probably land on the passion side, but I you're passionate about archaeology, well, good luck to you.

To the original question I say - be curious about everything. Try and learn from those around you. Try and add value outside of just support. Expand your support skills outside your specific job. Learn about the OS, or SQL, or coding.

You don't need to map out your niche just yet. Take some time to be a generalist with a wide experience. From there you'll likely find yourself gravitating to a field.