Most career advice assumes a linear progression: pick a domain, develop deep expertise, climb the ladder. This worked in stable industries with clear hierarchies and long planning horizons.
But for those of us working at the intersection of technology and institutions, the more useful pattern may be M-shaped: alternating between different domains, building connective tissue across them rather than depth in any single one.
My M
My own trajectory has moved between:
- Product and digital innovation (fintech, digital public infrastructure, AI applications)
- Growth and go-to-market (scaling partnerships, institutional sales, market entry)
- Cross-border ecosystems (connecting innovation across India, Singapore, and global markets)
Each phase built different muscles. Product work taught me how technology actually gets built. Growth work taught me how it gets adopted. Ecosystem work taught me how adoption happens across different regulatory and cultural contexts.
The connector across all three: public-private partnerships and the institutional design that enables technology deployment.
Why This Pattern Works
Technology adoption is a multi-domain problem. A technically sound AI governance framework fails if institutions lack the organizational capacity to implement it. A brilliant go-to-market strategy fails if the product doesn’t account for regulatory constraints. Success requires moving fluidly across domains.
Institutions evolve slowly; technology evolves fast. The gap between them is where the interesting work happens. People who understand both technology and institutional constraints can build bridges. But you can’t build bridges from just one side.
Strategic optionality. An M-shaped career creates multiple points of re-entry. When one domain faces headwinds, you can pivot to another. This isn’t lack of focus—it’s recognition that markets, technologies, and institutional priorities shift faster than we can plan for.
The Tradeoff
The cost: you’ll never be the world’s leading expert in any single domain. That’s fine. The value isn’t in depth—it’s in the ability to translate across contexts, spot patterns that domain specialists miss, and operate effectively in ambiguous spaces where no one has a playbook.
Who This Works For
Not everyone. If you’re energized by deep technical mastery or building a reputation as the expert in a narrow field, stay on the ladder. That path creates different kinds of value.
But if you find yourself consistently working on problems that don’t fit neatly into existing categories, the M-shape may be your natural trajectory. Lean into it.