- I work at a non-tech company's (retailer) tech org, managing Platform Eng, DE and DS
- I've worked as a SWE, DE, DS when I was an IC (also at FAANG)
- I have about ~50 people rolling up to me
- in a given year, I can promote about 2-4 people at this specific company, so less than 10%
- there are always more people who _want_ to get promoted
- so I'm always having _more_ conversations with people about "their promotions" than I can actually promote --- but I'm quite open about this
- I don't talk much about promotions during 1v1s unless the person is pushing for it, because of the above, there's already more people pushing for it than I can promote
- promotions aren't up to me --- at this company, I need about 5+ people to approve every promotion = me, my manager, my manager's manager, finance, my "local HR" and "central HR" (it's a big company)
- everybody in this chain except me is completely non-technical, so I need to be able to tell them a story --- "Jane is a great Data Engineer who's performing at level L+1" doesn't cut it
- it needs to be some story they can understand, preferably has some high-visibility project or person in it --- eg. "Led Project Foo for 1 year which is our org's Big Win this year" or "Built company-wide financial forecasts for the CFO"
- the above ^ doesn't have to be beyond normal 9-5 duties, and usually isn't
- in my case, my job is to start pushing for the promotion, and convince my manager to actually convince his manager and stick his neck out with Finance and HR --- and remind him 2x a week to push on it
- the easiest way to get a raise is not through promotions, it's to get a high outside offer, and either take that, or, come back and threaten you'll leave --- I can take that to HR and make things happen within a week, while a regular promotion here takes ~3-6 months
- Finance and HR obviously don't care about the whole thing, they're just trying to control costs and make sure trigger happy managers don't promote too many people / their friends
- I'm always very xparent with people about how promotions work, what the process is, where they stand --- and they appreciate it
- it's easier to get a good raise than a promotions, and at this company promotions don't get people more than a good raise --- so for people who are not already at the top of their band it's not worth it (we have very overlapping bands) in the sense that just arguing for a good raise is easier
A lot of what I write above are specific to my company, but all (big) companies will have a lot process and parties involved in pushing a promotion through --- so on average it won't be easy anywhere big, even if you're good and your manager is a good guy pushing for your case.