Maybe it’s just me, but is there anyone else who does NOT want to be promoted and is just happy to craft code day and night?
Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
151–160 of 286 posts
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#152Works for great company with amazing culture.
But what about insecure managers, jealousy managers, and managers who reward folks who are loyal to them or based on same region/country?
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Actually, you operate on the next level for certain amount of the time. You work with your manager to file for your promotion case. That's how the typical big corps work with promotions. This has always struck me as a pretty juicy deal going for the corporation. They get N years of "next level" work out of you while still being able to pay those N years in "previous level" salary. Good deal for them. How ridiculous…
> > Actually, you operate on the next level for certain amount of the time. You work with your manager to file for your promotion case. That's how the typical big corps work with promotions. > This has always struck me as a pretty juicy deal going for the corporation. They get N years of "next level" work out of you while still being able to pay those N years in "previous level" salary. Good deal for them. My current…
Its almost as if the definitions and expectations around titles are arbitrary and a song and dance around the value you bring/the current market rates
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#154This is one of the best pieces of career advice one can give, and I’ve had my fair share of experience that this works very well.
Most people wait to be promoted to the title/designation to do the work of that role. However, if you want to avoid friction when asked, “Why should I promote you to this role?”, you should already be doing the job and proving you can do it.
I once saw a QA tester tinkering with the front-end code, fixing the bugs himself, then went to the engineer and pointed out where to fix. When asked if he wanted to become a front-end engineer, I realized he was waiting for an opportunity to be promoted. So, I repeated my usual advice: if you want to be promoted, be already doing that role. He started learning, and work on front-end work besides his QA work. When he asked to be promoted, it was just a title change and a pay raise. He went on to lead the Product Design Team at a major oil company (at a branch in Bangalore, India). A Good photographer, and always has an eye for design.
Similar story of an engineer waiting to be promoted to a Lead Architect. Advised him to start doing it way before talking about his promotion. I don't remember his promotion in the team I was working but heard back that he was easily gotten to that position and a big salary jump at a new company (a new city). I once saw him working in the plane we were flying together, while I was sleeping. I think he deployed when we landed.
In touch with both, and lot others. None that I had advised on doing the role above them have regretted.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#155In my view, the meta-advice is to understand the goals and constraints of your boss (and their boss), and work towards those goals (while adhering to the constraints). With that perspective, we can derive some rules of thumb: 1. Promotions are not a reward for past performance. Instead, they are a bet that you will contribute more towards those goals with a promotion than without one. 2. As the OP says, if you are de…
> if you are demonstrating performance at your boss's level, that's evidence/proof that a promotion is warranted.
It can not be farther from the truth.
The best way to stay in the bottom is to work hard, to focus on work so that others have time to focus on advertising themselves, take credit of your good work and backstab you for everything else, befriend and lick the shoes strategically -even develop bed skills, for some- while you isolate yourself by sweating and believing everyone will understand or care about how you optimized that for loop.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#156"Here's the thing most people miss: promotions don't fall off the tree and land in your lap. You've got to show that you're capable of handling the responsibility for a sustained period of time."
Some classic management gaslighting. You have to work for a few years at the level of the higher position to get it. I will trust your work at this level, profit off of it, hold you responsible for it but not pay you appropriately for it. It's always the compensation piece that takes time.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#157"Here's the thing most people miss: promotions don't fall off the tree and land in your lap. You've got to show that you're capable of handling the responsibility for a sustained period of time." Some classic management gaslighting. You have to work for a few years at the level of the higher position to get it. I will trust your work at this level, profit off of it, hold you responsible for it but not pay you appropr…
"Seriously, ref, I'm good enough to win. No need to play the game, you can just hand me the gold medal now!"
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#158In my view, the meta-advice is to understand the goals and constraints of your boss (and their boss), and work towards those goals (while adhering to the constraints). With that perspective, we can derive some rules of thumb: 1. Promotions are not a reward for past performance. Instead, they are a bet that you will contribute more towards those goals with a promotion than without one. 2. As the OP says, if you are de…
> if you are demonstrating performance at your boss's level, that's evidence/proof that a promotion is warranted. It can not be farther from the truth. The best way to stay in the bottom is to work hard, to focus on work so that others have time to focus on advertising themselves, take credit of your good work and backstab you for everything else, befriend and lick the shoes strategically -even develop bed skills, fo…
The keyword in what they wrote is "demonstrating". You do still need to advertise what you've done.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1. Promotions are not a reward for past performance. Instead, they are a bet that you will contribute more towards those goals with a promotion than without one. Actually, you operate on the next level for certain amount of the time. You work with your manager to file for your promotion case. That's how the typical big corps work with promotions. So technically, it is using your past experience to prove that you ar…
> Actually, you operate on the next level for certain amount of the time. You work with your manager to file for your promotion case. That's how the typical big corps work with promotions. This has always struck me as a pretty juicy deal going for the corporation. They get N years of "next level" work out of you while still being able to pay those N years in "previous level" salary. Good deal for them. How ridiculous…
How exactly do you suggest it should work, then? A timer starts and when it runs out you get promoted and everyone just hopes you didn't just get moved up above your level of competence?
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Somehow the idea of going to work and not trying your best You make a great point -- let me further explain so I'm not misunderstood. If the person is putting in the same 40 hrs/wk (or whatever is standard) but just "doing their best", then there's no problem. But in my experience, your manager is expecting you to do all of your assigned role (e.g. write code), but then also do a bunch of stuff on top -- e.g. leadi…
> But in my experience, your manager is expecting you to do all of your assigned role (e.g. write code), but then also do a bunch of stuff on top -- e.g. leading and taking ownership of new initiatives that is extra work. Aside from AWS, who's famously bad at this, my experience is that this is usually because people want a faster career push. Imagine Jim, 8 years into his career. Jim is pretty good and his work take…
> There's nothing wrong with this choice [to work extra hours to get promoted].
But if there are limited slots for promotion, and that's generally always the case, the resulting competition among deserving engineers makes the extra hours more or less mandatory. Say that Amy is a better engineer than Jim and gets a third more done per hour. If Jim puts in 60 hours instead of the expected 40, then Amy isn't going to beat him for a slot unless she also starts working extra hours.
In the end, promotion becomes more about grinding than being effective. That's not great for company culture or retention of top talent.