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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

#71

Post by away0g »

AndrewAnchor wrote: post #67

I am a longtime lurker. I signed up to say this: Never work extra without being paid extra. You can easily work your butt off and never get anything. Sure, the boss and the company would like you to work extra, but when did the company ever pay you extra up front for work you—perhaps—would deliver at a later time? You are a business. It’s not sound business to lower your own hourly rate. Sure, if everything looks 100…

Also, if everyone followed this (OPs) advice that would be a problem. This is more suited to someone already being groomed or an employee who is being mismanaged. My employees do not have time to do unassigned work. If they find the time to present a project fully fleshed out the first thing i ask is where did you do this. At work? Problem, my KPIs are not accurate or youre a superstar who is going to walk unless i find room in the budget (unlikely) or start looking for your replacement because there wont be a reward for turning in unassigned work. Did you work on this at home? Problem as well, you are not paid to work at home. We do not want you to work outside of your hours of operation. Why did you do this?

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

#72

Post by jimbokun »

ggoo wrote: post #15

While this may work, it just seems like incredibly unhealthy advice to give or to take. People should be able to focus on their work without being expected to take up random side quests, and if there is a career path, make the requirements clear.

Doing work without contributing to identifying what is the most important work to do can be soul killing.

Some people just want to be given exact instructions on what to do. Others find that role very frustrating.

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

#73

Post by wrsh07 »

normie3000 wrote: post #39
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…

> "codex and I think these solutions might work, but I haven't spent much time on it" This sounds bad to me. Why throw AI output at your colleagues if you haven't verified it?

There are two things here:

1. Sharing ai generated content is fine if you tell everyone what it is (I recommend also sharing prompts).

2. Ymmv, but my manager would want to know "roughly how much work would this be?" I don't think it's worth it for you to spend very much time answering that question _unless you're actually going to do the work_. This means I'm saying 2 things: first: if it's free for you, you should convey how difficult your proposal is. Very rough buckets are ok if they're pretty close. Second: an easy way for it to be free for you is to prompt codex, and I expect you will do a better job prompting the answer than your manager will

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

#74

Post by jimbokun »

cainxinth wrote: post #61
ggoo wrote: post #15

While this may work, it just seems like incredibly unhealthy advice to give or to take. People should be able to focus on their work without being expected to take up random side quests, and if there is a career path, make the requirements clear.

I agree. This outlook also implies a greater degree of meritocracy than usually exists in a competitive corporate environment. Doing a good job and taking initiative sometimes leads to promotions, but it sometimes just leads to more work. Meanwhile, many ladder climbers are busy optimizing for their own success, not the corp's.

You want to leave any company where doing a good job doesn’t lead to raises and promotions, as soon as possible.

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

#75

Post by crazygringo »

jimbokun wrote: post #69
crazygringo wrote: post #63

While this is true... it's also letting yourself be massively taken advantage of, and underpaid. Yes, the best way to get promoted is to do work above your level. The problem is, you're not getting paid what you deserve for that . If you're always doing this, you're always being underpaid by a full level . Which is why much better advice is to try to get promoted by switching companies and jumping a level in the proc…

Do the work one level up for a while and add it to your resume when searching for that higher level job at another company. Or maybe your current company will surprise you with a promotion in the meantime.

Or don't? Because the other company may hire you at the higher level anyways, that's the point. Because you're getting multiple companies to compete for the experience you already have. It's your task to demonstrate in interviews that you have the skills for that higher level. Which is a huge shortcut.

And "maybe your current company will surprise you" just sounds like being taken advantage of to me. Because the reality is they probably won't. Not at anywhere near the same speed, usually.

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

#76

Post by away0g »

munchbunny wrote: post #23

My personal experience with this from the manager's perspective: I aim to promote someone as soon as they are ready, but no sooner. If I promote someone who will not succeed against the expectations of the higher leveled title, I'm just setting them up to get fired or "managed out" when they were otherwise perfectly competent in the level they're at. That's ignoring the natural fuzziness and storytelling element of d…

Being promoted into obsolescence or into under performing is a death sentence. Some people are perfectly suited for their work and would find their bosses work to be numbing, too complex or too simple for them. Not getting a promotion is not a bad thing (do not mistake raises for a promotion). If the company cannot or will not allocate more to your position then that is a problem as a business, not something you can control. The best case scenario is to find another company who can pay your worth for the skill set presented.

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

#77

Post by jimbokun »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #51
bluGill wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True, that can happen, but that feels toxic. A threat by the employee will always breed some negative feelings towards the employee, even if it is subconscious. I am just writing about relatively sane, stable organization where the employer-employee relationship is stable and acceptable.

But indicating you are hoping to be promoted is expected and encouraged at any functional and growing organization.

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

#78

Post by wrsh07 »

jimbokun wrote: post #64
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…

Everything you describe is still very much IC work. Nothing that will signal you are ready for management responsibilities. For those kinds of roles you want to demonstrate you can communicate with and organize a group of people to accomplish an important task.

Sure, at this point, substitute in whatever responsibilities are given to the role you're seeking:

> If you're doing everything your team needs from you, now is a great time to do the additional work

Fwiw, most tech companies do not consider eng management to be a promotion. The path to becoming a manager is thus "figure out that you want to be a manager, discuss how such a transition would look with your manager, etc"

That said, if you're not already earning the trust of your team (you do the things you say you'll do, etc) you will not have an opportunity to manage

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

#79

Post by jimbokun »

chaoz_ wrote: post #7

I think that works well for smaller orgs, but in larger organizations (especially where department headcount growth is not expected) it might be more complicated and more meta/political. I wish that were not the case, but in reality, trying to "do the job" of your manager can backfire.

Those are also companies where both your career and salary will stagnate.

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

#80

Post by jimbokun »

patrickmay wrote: post #6
waisbrot wrote: post #4

IME, taking on extra responsibility doesn't get you promoted. However, you can take it on and then find a new job with a better salary where the responsibility you added is part of the expectation. The blog is not terrible advice, but "getting promoted" just seems like a waste of time and effort nowadays. To get promoted at Google from L5 (Sr SWE) to L6 (Staff SWE) you need to do the work of a GOOD L6 for 1y+ and hav…

It's a real problem. I saw people boomerang back to Google after 18 months at one or even two levels higher, much faster than they could have been promoted internally.

This seems to be a near universal phenomenon and I wonder if there is any behavioral research explaining it.
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