Learning Curve, Environment, Problem
Evaluate whether to stay in or leave a role using three questions, not job titles
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 86%
A three-lens check for assessing whether your current role is still right for you: Is your learning curve steep enough? Is your environment (people, tooling, staffing) helping you grow? Is the problem genuinely interesting to you? Framing career decisions around skills and experiences you want — rather than roles, companies, or prestige — keeps you making the most of the career you're living now.
Origin
Costello's personal framework for career intentionality, built to help herself decide as much about staying as about leaving a role.
Core principles
- 01Think in terms of skills and experiences you want, not roles, companies, or specific problems.
- 02Be as intentional about staying in a role as about leaving one.
- 03Passions are made, not found — a problem doesn't need to be sexy or at a brand-name company to be worth doing.
How to run it
- 1
Check your learning curve
Ask whether the steepness of your learning curve is doing you a favor. You might love the org and the problem yet still not be learning fast enough or being challenged.
- 2
Assess your environment
Evaluate whether the people, staffing, and tooling around you positively impact your ability to grow. A toxic manager, a blocking peer, or thin resources all count and are often under-weighted.
Pro tip Your environment should include people who actively advocate for you — don't dismiss this as unserious.
Watch out People routinely under-take environmental factors seriously and stay in setups that quietly cap their growth.
- 3
Judge the problem
Ask whether the problem your product solves is fun and interesting to you — not whether it's prestigious. Curiosity about the problem makes you do a better job.
Pro tip Remember passions are made not found; try different things and see which problem genuinely interests you.
In the wild
Costello notes you might love the organization and the problem and still feel you're not learning fast enough — which is exactly why the learning curve is a separate lens from enjoyment.
→ The three lenses give a structured way to decide whether to stay or seek an alternative, instead of defaulting to titles or brand names or living in an imagined future.
Common mistakes
Framing career choices around roles and companies
Optimizing for titles or prestige means you live in the future and fail to make the most of the career you're actually in; skills and experiences are the better frame.
Under-weighting environment
People don't take toxic managers, blocking peers, or missing tooling seriously enough, and those factors quietly cap growth even when the problem and learning are good.
Is it for you?
Best for
Professionals deciding whether to stay in or leave a role and wanting a deliberate, non-prestige-driven check
Not ideal for
Situations where external constraints (finances, visa, market) dominate the choice and reflective self-assessment is secondary
From the transcript
“I evaluate whether I'm in a healthy role and in a good setup by asking myself about my learning curve like is the steepness of…”
“learning curve environment and problem are things that I use to assess like am I still on the right path or should I consider an…”
From the episode
How to ask the right questions, project confidence, and win over skeptics
Paige Costello (Asana, Intercom, Intuit)