[HN Gopher] Things I wish someone told me about getting a promotion
___________________________________________________________________
Things I wish someone told me about getting a promotion
Author : _ttg
Score : 89 points
Date : 2021-05-13 10:19 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (radhika.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (radhika.dev)
| [deleted]
| Pfhreak wrote:
| One thing I tell all my folks and mentees is to understand why
| they are pushing for promotion. Engineering promotions are
| different jobs. You'll be taking on different responsibilities
| and expectations, and blindly chasing a level bump just because
| the number of bigger can lead to bad outcomes.
|
| Whether it's pay, prestige, interest in expanded scope,
| whatever... Make sure you know that motivates your drive for the
| promo.
| rjmill wrote:
| Great points overall. One thing I'd add if you're looking to get
| promoted in an individual contributor role:
|
| Ask your manager what it would take to get a promotion. It's
| different at different companies.
|
| Furthermore, asking lets your manager know that you're trying to
| push yourself to the next level. If you're already operating at
| the next level, it'll help the manager notice sooner. If you've
| still got some ways to go, your manager may be able to help you
| find opportunities for growth.
|
| The worst cases would be where your manager can't help promote
| you (no matter how much you deserve it) or your manager actively
| thwarts your advancement. In the former case, asking early can
| help ease feelings when you get your promotion at another job. In
| the latter case, your manager has probably been thwarting you all
| along. But now you know. Don't waste your time trying to impress
| someone who will never acknowledge your efforts.
|
| If you want to advance, talk to your manager. They can help. If
| they can't/won't, find an environment that's more supportive of
| your growth.
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| One thing I was expecting to see was that promoting yourself by
| moving, i.e., selling yourself to other companies is not only the
| best method for price discovery for yourself, but also that it
| will not come with excess responsibilities, i.e., promotions
| without/inadequate pay and mostly more responsibilities/work.
|
| It is an issue and something I have been thinking about, because
| the corporate machine thinks it is saving itself money by
| screwing its employees, but there are many other way in which in
| reality is just undermines value and cuts growth and future
| earnings potential when your "human resources" decide to take
| their resources and institutional knowledge to a different
| company after years of sub optimal deployment due to the
| corporate culture.
|
| For some corporations the burn and churn model may work; some big
| finance, insurance, tech, and consulting firms come to mind, but
| I don't think it can work without having generated a certain
| (al)lure.
| frobozz wrote:
| Yes! Several months of doing most of the higher grade work to
| prove yourself worthy of promotion.
|
| Then you actually get the promotion (normally with the smallest
| possible payrise). They still won't let you let go of all your
| old duties while piling new ones on you. And they keep hounding
| you to aim for the next promotion, which is increasingly
| unavailable.
| akavel wrote:
| (Per HN guidelines:
|
| _> If the title contains a gratuitous number or number +
| adjective, we 'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate
| "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys."
| Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic
| Solids."_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
| [deleted]
| impoppy wrote:
| Don't let this article get in your head if you want a promotion
| or a raise.
|
| 1 and 6 are total BS. If your company does not have KPI or
| whatever useless and evil things project managers invent, just go
| to your manager and tell them you want a raise the moment you
| feel like you're doing good and deserve it. And if the company
| still won't give you a raise then I doubt it values you enough.
|
| My salary raised over 200% in half a year just because I
| underestimated my base tag and asked for a raise every time I
| felt like I was doing very good. Although that's not only about
| my performance but soft skills as well as pointed out somewhere
| in the article.
|
| My manager once said: "Business does not care about you. How
| modesty can help you achieve things?".
| EricE wrote:
| Six has been key to my carrier advancement. Every single job I
| got was people coming to me - because I was visible and they
| liked what they saw of me and thought I would be a good fit.
| And in all but one it ended up working out for both of us, and
| in that one not so great fit I transitioned to other satisfying
| and mutually beneficial work.
|
| Visibility should never be underestimated - not just for
| potential positive, but negative effects too. So many of our
| younger generation doing so many stupid things on social media
| is going to be a real long term problem if attitudes around
| things like cancelling people for anything uttered at any point
| in time on Twitter aren't changed more broadly in our society.
| ironmagma wrote:
| This is accounted for and preempted at many corporations who
| enforce that promotions are only given once a year, and at a
| set time, or something like that.
| [deleted]
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| "I've had (cis, white, male) friends tell me that they were
| basically promoted on potential and didn't have to actively go
| out of their way for several months to prove their performance.
| It'd be nice if that happened to the rest of us, but don't bet on
| it."
|
| Where is all this white privilege? I seem to have missed the boat
| (I have the correct pigmentation apparently). I had to provide
| value in order to be promoted / get raises and actually speak up
| and ask for it.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Where is all this white privilege?
|
| On Twitter.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Just because a type of privilege exists doesn't mean it's
| universally applied or doesn't coexist with other disadvantages
| that might dampen it.
|
| I've experienced biased treatment in my favor as a white person
| who presents male, and against me because I'm neurodivergent.
| I've also experienced fair treatment, and learned correction
| toward such, by leadership who value inclusion and listen.
|
| The author isn't suggesting that _all_ white cis men _always_
| get promoted based on potential without having to demonstrate
| the relevant qualifications consistently, but that it's more
| likely.
|
| If you don't think that's true, there are a zillion studies
| that validate it. I say this because I'm a month and a half of
| weekends into writing what I thought would be a weekend blog
| post about addressing comp disparities, and so far all I have
| is a draft explaining why I chose the source I did. I'd be
| happy to link it, if you're interested in learning more!
| willcipriano wrote:
| The visibility point is worth noting. I've noticed that in SE
| jobs, luck of the draw plays a lot into it. If you make modest
| progress on a project people are excited about, management will
| shout your name from the rooftops. On the other hand, toil nights
| and weekends on a loss leader and people will ask "do we really
| need Bob?"
|
| If you get put on a project like that, it's probably best career
| wise to find a new role.
| conjectures wrote:
| Seems like a variant of the Fundamental Attribution Error.
| Explain in terms personality something caused by situation.
| muttled wrote:
| This unfortunate reality is probably why Google services keep
| ending up deprecated and abandoned as everyone flocks to the
| new-new.
| Jenk wrote:
| God yes, and if you work on the literally visible (UI) your
| work is so much more valued than if you are working somewhere
| amongst that cloudy bit of the platform diagram with all the
| lines and boxes that just does stuff.
| thinkmassive wrote:
| I was on a project to automate provisioning of trial
| environments (VPC, EKS, our software deployed on top) for
| prospective customers. Other members of this group were
| primarily marketing and management, I was the only engineer.
|
| My portion of the work was described as "pressing a button"
| so I removed myself from the project at the earliest
| opportunity.
| moshmosh wrote:
| About the only times I've seen backend work get _any_ kind of
| positive reaction in a meeting or presentation, like UI does
| _constantly_ , is when a bad DB query has been fixed so it
| drops from 20s to 20ms, or something like that.
| ryall wrote:
| Premature Optimisation is terrible for your career path. In
| this case premature means "before management notices" ;)
| jerf wrote:
| A bit of career advice that has served me amazingly well over
| the years: Stick your head up every so often, maybe every six
| months, and assess where your position is in the company
| relative to the company's goals. If you're on a sideline
| project, or if your company is moving away from where you are,
| or you're in a project that just isn't doing well, take action
| to start angling away from that. Try to get moved to a good
| project. Or, if you've got the institutional reputation, see if
| you can't be the lead or part of a team for a new project in
| line with the company goals and headed towards obvious revenue
| bottom lines. Or, worst case, find a new job, but this is not
| always necessary.
|
| It may be a months-long transition, even, but often if you are
| persistent there's nothing impossible about this, and it
| doesn't have to be something that you're constantly stressing
| about. It's just a light touch applied every so often. Once
| you're in such a position it'll usually be some _years_ before
| you _need_ to worry about this again. But even so, keep
| sticking your head up every so often and see what 's going on,
| just to be sure.
|
| But do it on _purpose_. Don 't just sit back and take whatever
| gets assigned to you. This doesn't even have to be stressful
| necessarily, because while you may encounter local resistance,
| at the corporate level nobody is ever going to complain that
| you're trying to align yourself harder with where the company
| is going. It's not like you're asking to pursue a pet project
| on the company dime with no prospect of payout... it's the
| opposite of that in almost every way.
| pietromenna wrote:
| Great article, I specially liked that you pointed out 3 points:
| Visibility, Keep learning and being in the right place makes all
| the difference.
| EricE wrote:
| Two followed by Six on his list got me every promotion/increase.
| Only twice within the same org was I able to get a
| promotion/increase my salary. While it's possible, it's often way
| easier to get an increase by moving to a different organization
| or company. Which can be annoying - or an opportunity for growth
| you hadn't considered.
| rgblambda wrote:
| >I thought that the only way to get a promotion was to get a new
| title along with a new job.
|
| Are companies finally catching on to this and starting to
| encourage upward progression?
| dominotw wrote:
| No. Its almost impossible to go to different level of a ladder
| in a new company. Maybe if its a startup;
| sneak wrote:
| There's little/no penalty to jobhopping frequently in this field,
| so I wonder how much benefit there is to sticking it out
| (presumably underpaid) until you can catalyze a promotion/raise.
|
| I think the best way to optimize your interaction with the market
| as an FTE is to simply always be occasionally interviewing and
| scouting around. There are lots of biases and inertia and
| anchoring and stuff with orgs with which you have an existing
| relationship.
| dijit wrote:
| > There's little/no penalty to jobhopping frequently in this
| field
|
| This is not my experience as a person involved in hiring in
| Europe.
|
| If you never stay somewhere more than a year it's a red flag.
|
| If it's less than 6months then you won't pass the HR filter.
| Bulpi wrote:
| i would not subscripe to saying a year or 6 month is
| frequently.
|
| At least for me frequently is 1-3 years while i do wanna know
| why you left your company after a year.
|
| But it is easy to come up with a reason why you switched
| early and in this market, i take one person who swtiched
| early but feels like a good candidate over one who feels like
| a bad one.
|
| The market in germany was empty the last 5 years, we were
| happy to get what we could.
| sneak wrote:
| I didn't mean to suggest anything less than a year. The topic
| of TFA is internal promotions; are people getting promoted in
| their first year?
|
| My suggestion is that you shouldn't wait very long at all for
| an internal promotion if you can just get a new job that pays
| better. I can't imagine this is a process that you engage too
| much in in the first year of a job, where you likely wouldn't
| be eligible for a promotion in the first place.
| dijit wrote:
| Ah, I understand. Then I think we're in agreement!
| analyst74 wrote:
| Job hopping up to senior engineer is fine, but to progress
| beyond that requires support network and influence, which is
| hard to acquire quickly if you join as a new face.
|
| Of course, if you made a bad first impression or grew the wrong
| kind of reputation in your firm, it may be easier to do a
| lateral switch to start fresh.
| danaris wrote:
| > There's little/no penalty to jobhopping frequently in this
| field
|
| As long as you're already wealthy enough to be able to
| comfortably afford to move. And single, or with a stay-at-home
| or fully-remote spouse.
| sneak wrote:
| Who moves in 2021 to write software?
| danaris wrote:
| I mean, the remote question is still very much up for
| debate in most places.
|
| Personally, I think any company that refuses to offer full
| remote work to any developer who wants it deserves to crash
| and burn. However, I also think that's wishful thinking in
| the near-to-medium term: I'm expecting to see at least a
| small majority of companies try to force all their
| employees back remote once they decide that enough people
| are vaccinated that they can call the pandemic "over
| enough".
|
| I think it's massively premature to dismiss concerns about
| having to relocate for a new job at this point.
| sneak wrote:
| > _I 'm expecting to see at least a small majority of
| companies try to force all their employees back remote
| once they decide that enough people are vaccinated that
| they can call the pandemic "over enough"._
|
| Small majority means a large minority who don't. It's
| simple: just work for those. You're also talking about
| the future; right now, the majority is remote. Get any
| one of those, then simply don't ever relocate and let
| them shoot themselves in the foot if they want to fire
| you.
|
| SWEs have their pick of employers, that isn't up for
| debate any longer.
|
| The only way labor gets any power is through refusing
| having their deals made worse.
| Bulpi wrote:
| I moved to a big city when i started my work life for this
| single reason: opportunities.
|
| No need to move when you just switch your public transport
| line.
|
| Nonetheless, honestly i think career progression is totally
| different if you don't live in a city or if you are not very
| flexible.
| deelowe wrote:
| I see a string of 1-3 year stints as a potential red flag
| personally. Anything less than a year will definitely be
| scrutinized. There have absolutely been resumes I've passed up
| on where there was a trend of ~2 years in a role before moving
| on to another company or team.
|
| My rationale: Especially in more senior roles, 2 years is about
| the sweet spot where your house of cards can start to fall
| apart. You start a new role, spend 1-3 months ramping up,
| another 3-6 months strategizing/planning, and a year or so
| executing. By the end of all this, you're ~2 years into it and
| those initial ROI statements of $XM per year will start getting
| assessed.
| bradlys wrote:
| And for every person like yourself - there are plenty of
| companies hiring people like me who are going into their 6th
| job in 8 years. (Comp is ~400k/yr, was much higher in
| previous role but that's stock appreciation at work)
|
| :/ 2 years is usually where people can only put up with so
| much toxicity before leaving. Even at 1m+/yr, I couldn't last
| longer than 2.5 years. A lot of work environments change too
| - so, often you're quitting your new manager (who won't let
| you transfer) and not the company.
| deelowe wrote:
| It really depends on the context. Nothing is black and
| white when it comes to hiring.
| triceratops wrote:
| I've been in the industry over 10 years, only one of my jobs
| has lasted over 3 years. And even when I don't leave the
| company, I do change my team after about 2 years.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| Sorry but: fuck this. I also work as a software engineer, and I
| focus on one thing only: professionalism. Professionalism is
| about:
|
| 1. knowing my stuff. I got my degree, I read, I experiment with
| new tech and I never stop learning.
|
| 2. responsibility. Am I working on Issue 345? You bet I'll do my
| best finishing it on time or I'll inform you if that's not
| possible way beforehand.
|
| 3. don't harm others with the excuse of points 1 or 2.
|
| I don't care about visibility or playing politics. I don't care
| about levels. The idea of "performing" at a certain level is
| ridiculous. I do care about getting compensated for the stuff I
| do, but based only in points 1 and 2 above. It has worked for me
| in many cases, although sometimes I've had to quit because
| companies were expecting me to play the game.
| irrational wrote:
| This is me. Every year at review time I get the usual, where do
| you want your career to go? What are your next steps? Um,
| frankly I very happy where I am, with my current compensation,
| with my current benefits, etc. I don't really want to go
| anywhere? It has worked for me the past 20 years. Hopefully it
| will work for the next 15-20 years or whenever I retire.
| Though, I enjoy my work so I'm in no hurry to retire.
| hansor wrote:
| >You will never get a promotion or raise if there's no formal
| performance review process and career ladder.
|
| That is total BS. I had promotion multiple times just because
| business owner liked me and valued my work.
|
| >You have to be performing at the next level for several months
|
| Total BS too. Maybe in India.
|
| > VISIBILITY
|
| This one is not BS! I have seen many many developers without any
| rise - just because they do not attend any meetings, they look
| like bumps(no suits!), and those who do not talk much with their
| own boss or boss above...
|
| When I manage to do something BIG - i make sure that my boss, his
| boss, and boss above KNOWS that we tried hard and delivered. It's
| not a shame to brag about real accomplishments :)
|
| In that way I received 32% pay-rise in past 2 years.
| Clubber wrote:
| >That is total BS. I had promotion multiple times just because
| business owner liked me and valued my work.
|
| Yes, I would say in my experience that in an environment that
| utilizes formal performance reviews, I was _less_ likely to get
| a promotion. When it 's a small company that is making money,
| and you wow your boss and make yourself invaluable, you get
| promotions / raises. It really boils down to busting your ass
| to get things done and letting the powers that be know it.
| elliottcarlson wrote:
| > Total BS too. Maybe in India.
|
| That was unnecessary -- this is something that is indeed an
| expectation in _some_ career ladders -- it's not a global
| truth, but nothing is.
|
| While the author made generalized claims and absolutes, so did
| you to the contrary - when the reality is always "it depends on
| who you are, and who you report to". Claiming total BS is
| probably more harmful in this case.
| philjohn wrote:
| Both my current, and previous employer (US tech firms) practise
| trailing promotions.
| giantg2 wrote:
| ">You have to be performing at the next level for several
| months
|
| Total BS too. Maybe in India."
|
| This is not BS. My company in the US expects you to be
| performing at the next level before promoting you. Where do you
| work? I work at a company that is regarded as doing the right
| thing and having good intentions, yet they will make you work
| for up to years in a role above your own before promoting you.
|
| I did this for at least a year before getting promoted to
| midlevel. Then I performed the role of senior dev and then tech
| lead for a year each and still did not get promoted. (They
| started to talk about it, but wanted me to take a 13% increase
| in hours for a 7% raise - that's not a real promotion in my
| book)
|
| I would say the list the OP posted is not great. It might be
| generally applicable, but every company is so different that it
| doesn't really matter. Even in the same company with a
| standardized process, promotions can vary greatly from manager
| to manager.
|
| I _hate_ visibility. I do begrudgingly agree that it 's
| necessary to get promoted in most companies. I really think
| that talent identification and rewards should be handled by the
| managers. Having people toot their own horn can take away from
| the team spirit between members and even create a perverse
| motive for what work/tasks people are willing to do. I've seen
| terrible tech leads that only for to where they did because
| they were yes men and would take credit for putting out fires -
| fires that were a result of their own shortsighted designs.
|
| But hey, I guess that's why I'm still a shitty midlevel dev
| that's only seen a 30% (22% inflation adjusted) pay increase
| over 9 years and doesn't even make $100k.
| hansor wrote:
| >I hate visibility. >I'm still a shitty midlevel dev that's
| only seen a 30% (22% inflation adjusted) pay increase over 9
| years and doesn't even make $100k.
|
| My advice: 1. Buy cheapest black or dark blue suit, buy few
| cheapest white shirts, buy cheapest leather shoes. You can do
| it under 120$ - and it will be best investment in your life.
|
| 2. BRAG when you do amazing stuff.
|
| Managers WILL notice if you CC them in email or talk about it
| in public. No need to "steal" success from anyone from your
| team - honestly brag about stuff that you personally made!
|
| You can for example send email at 9 PM to your team, boss and
| HIS boss such us:
|
| HI! I'm glad to announce that FEATURE XYZ IS WORKING, I will
| further test it in night, but it seems that its ready for
| production. WE MADE IT :)
|
| Otherwise your BOSS and HIS BOSS will never know that you are
| amazing! You need to show them that you are doing fantastic
| work - otherwise, they might be too busy to notice.
| moshmosh wrote:
| 1) A suit at or under $120 will probably be mostly or
| entirely synthetic. Even used, you may have trouble finding
| something in good shape that's wool at that price. You're
| gonna lose a lot of time trawling through estate and garage
| sales to achieve that, most likely. You don't need a super-
| expensive suit, but it needs to 1) fit (off-the-rack _will_
| need a tailor 's hand unless you're the luckiest person in
| the world) and 2) not look like it's made out of nylon. If
| you're buying new and plan for regular wear over a long
| time, also consider getting a second pair of trousers with
| it.
|
| 2) Don't buy a black suit. It screams "I only own one suit,
| and it's this". It's the suit-color of CEOs who own 20
| suits in many colors, and college interns who own exactly
| one. Navy or charcoal (a very dark grey) are much better
| for a business-oriented sole suit. Unless your family and
| friends are pretty fancy, the charcoal can probably do
| wedding & funeral duty, too, without getting you any funny
| looks. Works alright for a fancy dinner or evening event,
| too, unless we're talking something upscale enough that you
| need to be looking into dinner jackets (tuxes).
|
| 3) $120 _might_ get you used leather shoes that are in OK
| shape. If you pay that much for new leather shoes, they are
| assuredly _not_ leather and will fall apart in a hurry
| under actual wear. It 'll also probably be obvious they're
| not real leather, especially as they wear in. Leather shoes
| (not boots--they're higher as there's more material) start
| around $200-240 new. If you're actually going to wear these
| shoes more than a couple times a year, go for the real
| thing. Used is fine, but, again, $120's pushing it on price
| (most of the used shoes on the market didn't _start_ at
| $200ish, but more like $300+, is why most are still at or
| over $120 if they 're in good condition)
| hansor wrote:
| I'm talking here about bare minimum survivor kit :) [also
| I'm not from US so prices are lower here I guess]
|
| Even worst and cheapest possible suit ["slim fit"
| preferably] is still making you looking better than 95%
| of people around - as they don't know the difference.
|
| Modern nylon can look and feel GOOD if mixed with
| viscose. Such suits are ridiculously cheap. I have few of
| such suits, and to be honest - people(let's say ladies on
| the street) do not see the difference between those and
| 90% wool ones. :)
|
| Same goes with cheap Chinese shoes. If you take care of
| them - they will last even if they are shit. For example
| I still wear 100% leather shoes I bought for 40$ over 4
| years ago. I just take great care of them and I fix them
| on my own.
|
| My thesis is: get cheapest stuff and make most of it.
| Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax
| moshmosh wrote:
| On a budget, I'd favor getting a blazer or three and one
| or two pairs of good shoes/boots over buying a suit, if a
| person's really starting from nearly-scratch in the nice
| clothes department. They're (decent blazers) easier to
| buy used at a fairly low price, aren't quite as
| tailoring-required as suits, and can be dressed up or
| down very easily. They also blend in better at anti-suit
| tech companies.
|
| > Modern nylon can look and feel GOOD if mixed with
| viscose. Such suits are ridiculously cheap. I have few of
| such suits, and to be honest - people(let's say ladies on
| the street) do not see the difference between those and
| 90% wool ones. :)
|
| This is true! 1) a lot of people aren't great at telling
| the difference to begin with, so depending on your
| "audience", it may not matter much, and 2) if you _are_
| good at telling the difference, it is possible to find
| modern materials that don 't scream "this is polyester"
| the way older synthetic suits do.
| jerf wrote:
| Keep in mind the high degree of variance we're all going to
| experience due to the fact that there's a lot of variance in
| the field and in general most of us have held a small number of
| jobs. Those of us who have held enough jobs to have even an
| _anecdotally_ -significant sample arguably weren't around long
| enough in any one place to get a solid sense of how their
| promotions worked!
|
| There's plenty of places that hand out promotions as rewards
| for being good at your current job. There's plenty of places
| that require to you to have been doing some percentage of the
| promotion already. There's plenty of places that just never
| promote you. Heck, in different times and places, the same
| company can end up doing all of the above. Calling bullshit on
| any one of those because you've never experienced them is not
| sound.
| [deleted]
| hansor wrote:
| Ohh sh*t. Sorry if i offended anyone by "Maybe in India"!
|
| What I meant is that there are some sane companies where
| promotion or rise is more about motivation, and its not driven
| by "up or out" mentality that you can see in Accenture and
| similar companies exploiting their workers in poor countries.
| KevinAiken wrote:
| >You have to be performing at the next level for several months
|
| I worked at a slow pace large US tech company and this was an
| absolutely critical part of being promoted, which could only
| happen during the one or two promotion cycles a year.
|
| For a bit of context, this was a place where the best of the
| best during good years (so not the last year) may get promoted
| from a junior engineer to an engineer II in 2 years, so
| climbing was pretty slow.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Yup. In larger companies, and honestly in most start ups I've
| worked in as well, I always said expect something you
| "deserve" to come a quarter or two quarters after you've
| "earned" it.
|
| Frustrated that you havnt been promoted even though you have
| had all the conversations about getting promoted, your boss
| agrees you should be, and you consistently perform at that
| level? Give it 3-6 months and it will probably happen.
|
| The machine moves slowly.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "expect something you "deserve" to come a quarter or two
| quarters after you've "earned" it."
|
| ... if you get it at all.
|
| You don't _earn_ anything. Pay and promotions are
| unilaterally controlled by management. They decide who to
| _award_ promotions or raises to. If it were truly earned,
| there would be an unambiguous or non subjective set of
| standards that would definitively say that you deserve, and
| will recieve, a promotion or raise.
|
| "Frustrated that you havnt been promoted even though you
| have had all the conversations about getting promoted, your
| boss agrees you should be, and you consistently perform at
| that level? Give it 3-6 months and it will probably
| happen."
|
| I met the same criteria you listed for 2 _years_. It never
| came. Now I 'm 3 years beyond that and am still a midlevel
| since I had to switch stacks twice.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| Some people are happy taking a 32% pay cut in exchange for not
| needing to wear a suit or attend pointless meetings.
|
| The behavior you describe sounds like that of a good team
| lead/manager. Praising their team members for their efforts and
| drawing attention to successes and progress. It's a solid path
| for advancement up the corporate ladder, but it's not for
| everyone.
| Manishearth wrote:
| > Total BS too. Maybe in India.
|
| This has been the case at both my current and previous
| (American tech) jobs.
|
| And it's pretty racist to assume that a person is working or
| has worked in India just because they have an Indian name.
| milliams wrote:
| That mouse trail is so unbelievably obnoxious.
| [deleted]
| yholio wrote:
| I just spent 10 minutes playing with it while my cowworkers
| were blabbering about. Very relaxing.
| high_derivative wrote:
| As is pretending that 'minoritized backgrounds' don't know
| about promotion processes, the white man is hiding them.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| That's a remarkably uncharitable interpretation of the text.
| [deleted]
| high_derivative wrote:
| Pushing back against ideas of critical race theory is
| important lest they dominate all our discourse and turn us
| all into victims.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Define the "critical race theory" against which you wish
| to push back and explain how it relates to this post.
|
| (also note that "minoritized background" is a very broad
| descriptor; people who are the first in their family to
| go to university and have a white-collar job often
| experience the same problem of missing pieces of tacit
| knowledge and not knowing what they are expected to do)
| rgblambda wrote:
| Although I agree with your interpretation of the term
| "minoritized background", I think the author's choice of
| words was unfortunate. "Disadvantaged" or "Less
| Privileged" would be more appropriate.
| [deleted]
| pjc50 wrote:
| Could you explain why?
|
| This stuff is vulnerable to the "euphemism treadmill",
| where as soon as someone comes up with more "appropriate"
| language the same people get upset again because the
| actual real referent hasn't changed.
| rgblambda wrote:
| It's my opinion that the working class is not a minority.
| Although "minoritized" does not necessarily mean
| minority, that's the idea that comes to mind when people
| read the word (also, my opinion). The word "marginalised"
| is perfectly adequate.
|
| I'll admit it's kind of nit-picking. But someone did get
| the wrong idea from it.
| xupybd wrote:
| It's where you define people by a group identity. Then
| compare outcomes across groups. Any inequity is then
| provided as evidence of discrimination against that
| group.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| The subtle racism of low expectations has become blatant.
| dspillett wrote:
| Maybe I'm a bit desensitized by how obnoxious most of the web
| is these days, but really?
|
| I didn't even notice it until I went back after reading your
| comment, as first time around I clicked the link then once
| their use page-down to scroll. How much were you moving the
| mouse around to find it _that_ obnoxious?
| gofreddygo wrote:
| Another post on promotion hacking ?
|
| Top comment [1] from another good HN discussion [2] about this
| from late last year. Worth repeating Here's some
| of my learnings about getting promoted for those that really want
| to play that game: - Only the perception of your work
| matters - Attend the social events and get in good with the
| bosses - The countability of your major achievements is
| important. Make the list long, too long to hold in the mind
| - At the same time the gravitas of your best achievement is also
| important since that will be the soundbite that is shared about
| you behind your back - Get allies who can proselytize about
| you behind your back - Be the best. The difference between
| one and two is bigger than that between two and three, as far as
| promotions go - Take credit for your work (use pronouns I
| and Me when talking about your work, not We) and do not allow
| others to take credit for your work - If it's a teamwork
| situation with other people on your level, don't do most of the
| work, because the credit will end up being split 50/50 in the
| eyes of the bosses even if you did most of it - Make a very
| good first impression - Shape the narrative around the role
| you played in the success of the mission/team/company - Get
| the bosses to make a soft public commitment regarding your
| competence - Even if you have a really good boss, all of
| the above is still important, because they are fallible humans
| and aren't omniscient - Actually do good work, it'll make
| the above easier
|
| 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24622111
|
| 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24618707
| akarma wrote:
| This started off quite well and it's valuable to think about
| the manager's perspective but:
|
| > Take credit for your work (use pronouns I and Me when talking
| about your work, not We)
|
| This doesn't apply to everyone but having worked in Product and
| in a team lead and managerial capacity, I can't imagine this
| coming off well at all.
|
| > do not allow others to take credit for your work
|
| Of course that's dreadful, but there's a difference between a
| coworker taking credit and a manager taking credit. In some
| tech companies and many older-style companies (law firms I can
| say with certainty), the latter is super common and it may be
| bad for your career to protest too hard.
|
| > If it's a teamwork situation with other people on your level,
| don't do most of the work, because the credit will end up being
| split 50/50 in the eyes of the bosses even if you did most of
| it
|
| There are ways to privately and without placing blame make
| clear that you did most of the work in a way beneficial to your
| career. I can't imagine trying that hard to not do more than
| 50%.
| aliswe wrote:
| Wth? This sounds like a bunch of narcissistic junk to me.
|
| The sauce to performing successfully is to add value and to
| communicate clearly - and to also do these two things outside
| your "box" (intentionally vague).
|
| This stuff on the other hand seems completely disingenous.
| aynyc wrote:
| Hmm... is this how current startup or "agile" companies
| environment work now? #1-4 are utter non-sense. #5/6 are
| generally true in every job if promotion is what you want, plenty
| of folks just don't care about that. Sad part of me thinks that
| this will be the future workplace culture, but I want no part in.
| shard wrote:
| I find #2 and #3 more relevant the higher you move in the
| hierarchy. For #3, to me it's about how well you can move up
| levels of abstraction: If you are working on features, can you
| develop a product-level view? If you are working on products,
| can you develop a portfolio-level view? A company-level view?
| Each level up has less to do with engineering and more to do
| with finances, marketing, company resources, and cross team
| collaboration than before. It's not easy to see two levels
| above you. However, relating to point #2 in the article, you
| have to show that you are able to think and work at the level
| above you if you want to be promoted. If you have tunnel vision
| and can't expand your point of view to encompass the larger
| picture, you're not going to be promoted. This assumes that we
| are talking about promotions that include more responsibility
| as opposed to merely a change in title or more salary.
| tristor wrote:
| My experience, as someone who's had internal promotions multiple
| times in my career at different companies, is that the only point
| here that's actually true is #6 about visibility, but that the
| author's take on visibility is a bit too narrow. Getting promoted
| is mostly about three things as an engineer:
|
| 1. Execute with excellence.
|
| 2. Establish a positive reputation, preferably as a subject
| matter expert
|
| 3. Align yourself to the direction of your business unit or the
| company.
|
| In pretty much that priority order, actually. Whether you have a
| formal review process, quarterly goals and KPIs, take on duties
| off the HR-approved job description of the next level up, et al,
| none of that matters.
|
| Visibility is all about #2. Being the engineer that sits in the
| dark corner hacking away and nobody even knows you're in the
| office (if you've ever had the lights turn off while you're still
| at work because someone else thought they were the last one out
| of the office, this is probably you) is not going to get you
| promoted. I am an introvert, and I will tell you directly that
| you do not need to be gregarious, charming, and a social
| butterfly to get visibility, nor do you need to go into 1:1s with
| your boss and brag for 20 minutes every month.
|
| Visibility is as simple as:
|
| 1. Say hello to people at work when you come into the office.
|
| 2. Remember (or write down) people's names and what they do,
| understand the organizational chart of your company.
|
| 3. When someone asks you a question, answer honestly, including
| "I don't know." Use these questions as an opportunity to grow
| your knowledge.
|
| 4. If you find an area where there are a lot of questions and you
| consistently know the answers, lean in and be willing to answer
| those questions.
|
| Doing this establishes a positive reputation (or at least a
| neutral one) and sets you up to be considered a subject matter
| expert on whatever niche you find yourself fielding questions
| about the most, which may not even be your specific job duties.
|
| If you're consistently executing your job duties at above
| baseline standards and your coworkers across teams and
| departments think positively of you and consider you an expert on
| some topic, you'll find internal promotion comes relatively
| easily even if you don't have any formal review or KPI process.
|
| Finally, and this is a big one. You have to ask for the
| promotion. Do not expect anyone to just randomly swoop down and
| promote you. It does happen, sometimes, but generally you have to
| advocate for yourself. In really well structured companies it as
| easy as asking your boss and they take care of the rest, but the
| reality is most people don't have great managers or exist in a
| well structured organization. So figure out who to talk to, and
| ask them.
|
| I don't touch as much on #3 at the top because even if you're
| doing maintenance work on a legacy system nobody cares about, if
| you can become the hero to whatever department uses that system
| as their SME or be known positively as an SME on other things and
| are willing to answer questions outside your strict job duties
| about it, you can get promoted. It makes it vastly easier if
| you're working on something where your day-to-day aligns with the
| company's direction and vision, but it's not a requirement.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| Is this "climb the ladder" thing still relevant when companies
| move to just in time equivalent for workers? You get hired to do
| X tasks and then move on to another company.
| Bulpi wrote:
| Not sure what you mean.
|
| I'm not aware of this schema in big companies or smaller ones.
| Getting a head count is hard, hiring is a lot of effort.
|
| For everything else you have service providers. If you wanna be
| independent and work per task, thats a totally different story
| all together.
|
| You have to do acquisition yourself, you have to do training
| yourself but you earn a lot more money faster.
|
| I still prefer the jobs where i hire/control an external person
| while having my career in a stable work environment. Which also
| means i'm the expert and while you can get experts from
| external, as a company you still need your experts who keep all
| the business experience with them.
| notaspecialist wrote:
| Yeahh...I'm gonna have to ask you to come in on the weekend.
| Ter420 wrote:
| KE,TAMIN/BLOW/ BARS/benzos/ FENTANYL etc........ Ready for you
| 24/7. Photo verification with respect to your specifications.
| cant sell what you don't have right... prices aint a problem.
| Shipment out next day. hit us up, lets do business.
|
| Email; teryplugofplugs@outlook.com
| sombremesa wrote:
| Yuck.
|
| The fact that junior devs are learning _this_ as facts of life
| should be a point of shame for the industry. I thought similar
| things when I worked at Amazon, but by and large a life built
| around corporate bullshit is not for me.
|
| There are other companies out there that are much more human and
| don't force you to restructure your mindset around what it takes
| to climb the ladder rather than what makes a great software
| engineer.
| 100011_100001 wrote:
| I started working as a Jr Dev at 32. Looking at other Jr Devs
| that entered the company around the same time I have had the
| fastest rise. Visibility is huge, this is true for any job.
| However visibility is a double edged sword, because you can fail
| spectacularly as well.
|
| Here is my perspective, take it as an opinion.
|
| I personally dislike people that talk the talk, but don't walk
| the walk. So if you want to wow your managers with lies and
| falsehoods this does not apply to you. (and you are part of the
| problem).
|
| My approach is based on a few pillars. Work smart, be willing to
| fail, get uncomfortable, force yourself to be extroverted, always
| be learning, give something back.
|
| Sometimes hard work is invisible. Anyone that had to spend
| countless hours on an end of life application fixing endless bugs
| with no one you can talk to is hard and thankless work. Work
| smart means fixing the right things, what has a big impact. You
| can do that anywhere, but doing it for a bleeding edge group or a
| problem solver group in your company makes the same amount of
| work appear better.
|
| For agile teams, another part of working smart is choosing the
| right stories. Some stories are easy but invisible, others are
| harder but visible, choose the one that have a visible effect,
| usually they are higher stake, but it's part of the process.
|
| Be willing to fail, goes hand in hand with smart work. If you try
| to avoid mistakes too much, you will get stuck trying to be
| perfect which means your output will drop. Also if you are
| working in high impact teams occasionally things will go really
| wrong. It might not even be your fault. That's fine.
|
| A lot of people mess failure up. They fail and try to cover it
| up. This might work for management, but other devs know. Guess
| what, they will remember that, not out of menace, but it will
| become part of their opinion of you. They'll know that if things
| go south you will lie about it, or throw someone else under the
| bus. In my humble opinion the best way to deal with failure
| that's your fault is be in the forefront of the fix. A simple "I
| should have noticed this issue, but I did not. I am already
| working on a fix, and have talked to X team on mitigation
| strategy" is all you need. Most sane organizations recognize that
| mistakes happen, I mean this is why QA exists to begin with. If
| your response to a defect is to blame the PM for not having clear
| direction, or the QA for not catching it...guess what, you just
| made a PM and QA not trust you.
|
| Discomfort is part of doing new things. The familiar feels safe.
| If you made a blue widget, then it's easier to make a red one,
| and if you make 10 widgets it's a walk in the park. However
| making a widget today, a bicycle tomorrow, a house next month
| will feel uncomfortable, however you will learn a lot. A counter
| point to this is don't be a generalist, try to master your tools
| a little bit. In other words don't always go for the new tech all
| the time, you want to be acquiring skills not dabbling.
|
| Force yourself to be extroverted. Most developers tend to be
| introverts, I love machines, I find them fascinating, and
| probably it's a lot easier for me to deal with input/outputs that
| follow patterns than the chaos of human reactions. However it's
| really really hard to be visible if you are an introvert and talk
| to no one. There are some very talented devs that can be fully
| introverted and are recognized. You have to be really spectacular
| to be able to do that. It's much easier to be extroverted. If you
| are actually an introvert you most likely have noticed that
| extroverts tend to get a lot of undeserved cred.
|
| For me it's a necessary skill. I am not suggesting you talk about
| the weather and have benign talk that no one cares about. I mean,
| say "hello", if someone mentioned they where going hiking this
| weekend, and it's Monday, ask them how it went. So perhaps it's
| more about being friendly. There is another aspect though, that
| without it you miss out on a lot. That's being willing to make
| presentations or sending emails to massive amounts of important
| people. You know, the introvert nightmare.
|
| Think about it, if you write good code and no one knows you did
| it, how on earth are you going to be promoted / respected /
| mentor others...whatever your drivers are. It's not really
| possible.
|
| Always be learning should be an obvious concept. If you are
| following my advice and you are working on cutting edge projects,
| being willing to fail, getting uncomfortable and even being more
| extroverted...you are learning.
|
| Finally, give something back. Don't be the person that does
| things and never helps anyone else. Write that documentation.
| Mentor other devs, pair program with others that seem to be
| having a hard time. Ping the chat with a recent thing you
| discovered.
|
| In the end, if your fellow devs like working with you, most
| likely your manager will sense it and that makes all the
| difference. Just make sure you are not full of crap and actually
| write some code.
| emrah wrote:
| Promotion does involve more than just technical chops so it is
| harder for those who just want to put their heads down, code and
| get things done without much funfair.
|
| > You have to be performing at the next level
|
| Apparently this happens more often than not, but I don't buy it.
| First of all, the next level should involve activities that your
| current level should not allow or leave enough time for you to
| do. So, no you can't perform at the next level.
|
| If you have been performing at the next level, and for a while,
| then the company has been taking advantage of you. You should
| have been paid at the next level too.
|
| It's very unfortunate but it does often seem easier to jump ship
| to get to the next level or skip a few.
| adaml_623 wrote:
| Good solid actionable items. Number 5 is something to bear in
| mind, sometimes you need to look externally.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| Quuote: "I've had (cis, white, male) friends tell me that they
| were basically promoted on potential ..."
|
| What's this doing on top of HN? Flagged
| benjaminjosephw wrote:
| If you find it offensive that sometimes people are treated
| differently (intentionally or not) because of their gender or
| race you wouldn't be alone!
|
| But, whether these concerns are real or just perceived, they
| won't go away simply by preventing people from talking about
| them. That just reinforces the perception of injustice.
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| I stopped looking at this site (.dev) as it turned in to a big
| SJW mess and less about technical and career growth.
| city41 wrote:
| Maybe you had a typo in your post, but .dev is a TLD.
| drstewart wrote:
| Racism and gender bias is rather en vogue these days, just
| against one very specific group of people.
| w0mbat wrote:
| > You will never get a promotion or raise > if there's no formal
| performance review > process and career ladder.
|
| Well that's obviously not true. Chaotic rapidly growing startups
| with little process, promote people at a vastly higher rate than
| established big companies with a lot of process and less growth.
| mypalmike wrote:
| You have a good counterpoint. But I think the point is fair
| when looking at more established companies. Even at places with
| formal reviews, many companies don't have a real process for
| career growth.
| didymospl wrote:
| That's exactly my story. I spent first few years of my career
| in a large company with a formal performance review. Everyone
| had to set some measurable KPIs with the manager at the
| beginning of the year and then regularly review it on 1-on-1.
| It was supposed to be the main factor in determining
| promotions. I really liked that job and I wanted to get
| promoted so I worked my a.. off by writing tons of code, tests,
| fixing bugs that no one had time to look at, doing code
| reviews, participating in architectural design meetings,
| helping interns, giving presentations on new libraries etc.
|
| Every year, around September-October when I was close to the
| finishing line for A grade, either by resolving 200 Jira
| tickets or increasing test coverage in my code to 85%, my boss
| would congratulate me, say something about lacking "bigger
| picture" and then simply add a totally unrealistic goal to my
| list. One year it was to increase the profit of our department,
| another to activate ten-person project which was started a
| month ago in production before the end of Q3. Something that
| suits a naive junior dev very well, you know. Then at the final
| review by the end of year he would say that even though my
| individual objectives were met, I'm not that much of a team
| player because I failed to achieve goals that are team-
| oriented.
|
| I have to admit it was a strong team and I was far from being
| the best developer there but in fact I was doing senior work
| for junior's salary. When I found out new junior hires earn
| much more than I do, I decided to hand in my notice. I was
| offered promotion immediately but still said no and ended up
| going from regular to a team lead in two years in a startup
| with no performance review whatsoever.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-05-13 23:01 UTC)