Reflecting on my career as a government contractor in the DoD, I feel as though SAIC/Leidos didn’t value me as much as AppNexus values me as an employee. AppNexus is invested in my growth and demonstrates it through training opportunities, educational incentives and growth opportunities.

A piece of advice, free, from me to you: if you’re in a job that won’t train you, won’t improve you, doesn’t invest in your success and doesn’t seem to value that humans can learn, grow and change, do you yourself a favor and find a different job.  It’s easy to clock your 8 hours and collect your paycheck, but you’ll probably find that the domain you practice has passed you by while you’ve been asleep at the wheel.  When you finally decide to leave, you’ll have a difficult time finding something new because all of your skills are old or irrelevant and all of your experience applies to the world 10 years ago.

TL,DR; Don’t stagnate at your job just because it’s comfortable.