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Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got

andrew.grahamyooll.com

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Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got

#41

Post by ozim »

cephei wrote: post #10
amflare wrote: post #5

Taking on extra responsibility is all well and good until someone figures out that they can just get you to do more work for the same amount of money. At that point your only option is to move on, because if you stop performing at the "expected" level due to lack of reciprocation, suddenly you have "performance issues".

In my experience, I've seen engineers try to take on more work to get promoted, but the key issue is that they were doing more work at their own level instead of focusing on work that would be their responsibility if they promoted. If an IC takes on more and more IC work instead of management responsibilities, it's harder to promote them.

If they do that, that's exactly why you don't want to promote them because it is clear they don't understand that doing x+5 work on your own is not as good as x*5 when you become multiplier by helping others.

Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got

#42

Post by GMoromisato »

bluGill wrote: post #34
wrsh07 wrote: post #26

This post has some big gaps. Who is this for? When is it relevant? The opposite advice is essentially addressed in Being Glue by Tanya Reilly^. If you do a job that your management chain is not measuring, you won't be rewarded for it. Excerpting: > But sometimes a team ends up someone who isn't senior, but who happens to be good at this stuff. Someone who acts senior before they're senior. This kind of work makes the…

I disagree with your rules. Not that they are bad - often they are the correct things to do, but they are not the rule. The rule is "Always do the thing that your company will find most valuable for you to do". Company politics is always the most important thing - but company politics shouldn't take very much time. (if it does either the productivity costs will kill the company soon or someone high up will figure you…

I totally agree with you.

The trick is that:

1. Sometimes we don't know what is most valuable (from the company's perspective).

2. It is easy to convince ourselves that whatever we want to do is really the most valuable thing (e.g., "Refactoring this massive subsystem will help the company in the long-term" or "Introducing this new technology (that I really like) will make it easier to recruit talent.")

Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got

#43

Post by raverbashing »

GMoromisato wrote: post #33

In 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…

1 is correct. You can't expect the person to get better when promoted, rather you move them to the job they are already (almost) doing

Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got

#44

Post by sailfast »

This works well if your company culture doesn’t abhor an IC or manager trying to push for improvements in places that are not their responsibility.

Unfortunately there are a lot of places that do dislike this - and it may result in you getting fired instead of promoted :)

Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got

#46

Post by sailfast »

bluGill wrote: post #36
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #18

My experience at several large companies I worked for, the promotion comes because the activities are already at the new, higher level. i.e., working at SVP/level 7 when officially at VP/level 6 for a period when the promotion is offered. Good or bad, this is how the industry I work in promotes. I think the best approach is to take on extra, above position responsibilities, accountabilities after discussion with supe…

Often you need not only to be at the higher level, but someone to call out that if they don't promote you you might leave. I've seen a lot cases (at many companies) where one person that everyone knows is good quitting for a promotion gets a dozen others promoted in the next few months. So if you realize you are not getting a promotion your leaving may be the trigger to get your coworkers promoted.

Correct. The best way to be promoted / given more money is to be a cherished contributor and be deemed a flight risk.

Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got

#48

Post by [deleted] »

wrsh07 wrote: post #26

This post has some big gaps. Who is this for? When is it relevant? The opposite advice is essentially addressed in Being Glue by Tanya Reilly^. If you do a job that your management chain is not measuring, you won't be rewarded for it. Excerpting: > But sometimes a team ends up someone who isn't senior, but who happens to be good at this stuff. Someone who acts senior before they're senior. This kind of work makes the…

[deleted]

Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got

#49

Post by beoberha »

cephei wrote: post #10
amflare wrote: post #5

Taking on extra responsibility is all well and good until someone figures out that they can just get you to do more work for the same amount of money. At that point your only option is to move on, because if you stop performing at the "expected" level due to lack of reciprocation, suddenly you have "performance issues".

In my experience, I've seen engineers try to take on more work to get promoted, but the key issue is that they were doing more work at their own level instead of focusing on work that would be their responsibility if they promoted. If an IC takes on more and more IC work instead of management responsibilities, it's harder to promote them.

Yep, as a manager, I am explaining this conundrum often. You can be a rockstar SDE 2 or senior, but not be ready for a promotion because you aren’t leading enough.

Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got

#50

Post by gloryjulio »

GMoromisato wrote: post #33

In 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…

> 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 are operating at the next level

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