Work is a pie-eating contest where the prize is more pie. Many learn this lesson too late in their careers. On at least three occasions (as recently as two weeks ago) I turned down promotions because the marginal stress was greater than the marginal salary increase. More money isn't always worth more.
The point is knowing where your limit is. A promotion often comes with more money and career opportunities. At least it did for me most of the times. The only time when it didn't I left and found better opportunities within a few months.
If you like what you do, and they give you new challenges that you enjoy (more pie) and more money/benefits. It's a win win scenario. I realize is not always the case and maybe in many jobs is rarely the case. My whole career almost every promotion has had substantial benefits, opportunities and growth. I am working nowadays less than I did my first 10yrs of career and doing almost 10x the comp.
Anti-cynicism response: you also get rewarded with respect, money, and fulfillment. Obviously the answer to all questions is “it depends”, but I can’t allow a “hard work is pointless” comment to go unanswered.
Also, life is work. Be grateful you're not a subsistence farmer, like nearly all humans ever, and a quarter of humans even today. You can learn to take joy in it, or you can choose to be unhappy about it.
If "it depends" is the answer to "does hard work pay off", then obviously "Hard work is pointless" is true, as it is no longer a guarantee that it will pay off.
This is silly. A factor may increase your chances significantly yet not be the only factor. This kind of black and white thinking is why people has a hard time navigating life, expecting any kind of guarantees.
It’s more silly not to realize that 60 years ago the janitor could buy a house and put the kids through school, 40 years ago you could get a college degree and buy a house as soon as you graduate…
And now you get nothing. Sure a few people get lucky - but that’s clearly luck with such obvious systemic issues. Like do you not know people? I know way more people who will never retire or own homes than the opposite.
People shouldn’t work hard if the deal gets worse every year. Don’t reinforce this bad system. Tear it down.
At shitty companies, yes. Look around, companies exist where good work is rewarded. A shitty manager will not notice whether you slack off or finish something diligently. Good managers do notice and reward, when the company is not a shithole.
No doubt they do, but for an idea like "hard work is usually worthwhile" to have any merit, these companies would need to be the norm, and not the subject of "they do exist, they're out there I swear!".
> you also get rewarded with respect, money, and fulfillment
Nope. You get rewarded with exactly how much you're able to get away with demanding via negotiation. The CEO won't suddenly swoop down and say wow what a hard working guy let's double his salary. You get rewarded if you're the only person who's able to do something but you're going to quit because a better company offered you more money. That puts them in the position of either rewarding you or watching you leave.
At a small minority of jobs, more work will result in respect, money, and fulfillment.
At most jobs, doing more work without a promotion already on the line just means you'll be expected to do more work going forward and your future evaluations will be based on your higher workload rather than your original baseline, which will make reaching that promotion even harder. Ask me how I know that...
Promotions tend to come with financial incentives as well.
I also don't think that, as I've gotten promoted, I've actually taken on that much extra work. The work itself has changed a lot, but it's work I find easier and more enjoyable so for me it almost feels like I'm taking on less. I'm also militant about my work life balance, and maintain very strict hours where I'm reachable.
Not once after a promotion I've been asked to work more than the rough expectation of 8hrs a day (and even that has been flexible). Work conditions vary across companies and it's a shame people gets so cynic that they miss opportunities at good companies.
There's an old story about three bricklayers; the first says "I'm laying bricks to feed my family"; the second says, "I'm building a wall"; the third says, "I'm building a cathedral." [0]
One could think of humanity's work as, "we're helping to build a universe." [1]
At least at Google none of this is true. Finding a project that is visible and being a part of it will get you promoted. Being a go to person will get you a lot of pretty words about how great you are. Nothing else.
It's a same thing everywhere. Hard work makes you a go-to person (at whatever). The go-to person gets you into high visibility projects. You ultimately can bargain your promotion using both of these qualities.
There was a guy I knew at Google who just went around figuring out what everyone was doing on a specific problem, made a bug for each one, and wrote a slide deck where he implied he was responsible for the cumulative result of 30 other teams. He's an L7 now.
I really regret telling him what I was working on.
Promotion at big orgs tends to be more of a game than anything else. Higher ups like empire building, and promotions (having higher level direct reports) increases their stature while also freeing up headcount at the now-vacant lower level slot(s) to grow their empire.
It’s not about what you do at all, it’s just about how you play the game. Many (most?) cases of positioning oneself for promo just involve casting a bigger shadow on the wall by doing the exact same work closer to the flashlight.
At L5+, if you are not playing the game you have very little chance of promo (you will have to work harder than any L+1 around), so if you are largely just interested in building and not posturing, you should just switch companies and make a diagonal move (and then, perhaps, come back).
This is also why you can’t do anything too risky (regardless of the potential reward) at Google unless you are capable of dishing out promotions - this game is what matters to Googlers, and things that don’t help with the game are efficiently discarded.
From the article: "I helped my first report at Google get promoted from Eng 1 to Eng 2 within 9 months, by advising her to find something that she can become the “the go-to person” for."
One place I worked had an informal piece of advice passed between employees: Either do something important well, or break something badly. If you don't you can't be noticed
My experience has been completely the opposite. Becoming the go-to person is a way to become a load-bearing employee that never gets promoted or otherwise has company mobility because the people who rely on the go-to person need that go-to person to stay exactly where they are.
Always saying yes to "go-to person" like asks is a great way to never get anything done and never let anyone else become the "go-to person" for a particular topic. So yeah, if you don't manage it right it can cause issues, but IME being the go-to person is only half of the game: offloading your responsibilities is the other half.
In my experience “Go to person” in a mature product has 2 stages:
(1) person who performs somewhat repetitive jobs
(2) person who is trusted to own projects in a given area
Being able to get rid of (1), either through automation or delegation, allows you to go to (2). If you’re stuck on (1) for too long, it’s better to leave.
This is also my experience. Being a go-to person led to 5 separate instances where a clearly underqualified person was promoted above me, with the company outright stating that I’m too valuable where I am (but also when I asked for more money, I wasn’t THAT valuable).
Then when I left they replaced me with 4 people cause losing a decade of deep dive rather than topical knowledge hurts.
Had they promoted me, I could have just trained a new person.
You do what you gotta do. The only way to learn really how valuable (in a capitalist sense) you are is by getting offers (ideally multiple) elsewhere. I accepted a counter offer once and stayed 2 more years. Ultimately I left for the same reasons, I was hitting a ceiling and they were not budging. I increased my comp 50% and reduced my responsibilities another 50% with the next move.
I've known several people who never got promoted because their bosses knew they'd have to hire 2-3 people to replace them, and there was no budget for extra people.
Of course they did all quit eventually, and I assume the budget for the extra staff was found somehow - albeit too late to keep their expert.
Yeah, in my experience developers who go above and beyond (especially in agile sweatshops) are generally rewarded with more responsibilities and the compensation never scales. Promoting these types into new roles is costly bc they can't really be replaced.
> Go-to for correctly operating a dated tool deep in the bowels of the machine? Cog.
> Go-to for all questions related to the machine, its history, future, and all machines like it? Not cog.
The difference between these two is the people you work with. If people come to you to have their questions answered but can't execute on it properly then... you become #1. Of course this can be twisted around to theoretically be a you problem or it could be an endless churn of warm bodies coming through hiring.
I think there is a certain skill in being a go-to person in such a way you regularly unblock other people, but also respect your own time and ambitions.
Are you constantly being asked how a system works? Take some time to document it, and then answer future questions by just linking to those docs. It's harder up front, but saves you time in the long run, and also mean that come performance review time you can say "I wrote this documentation <link>!" instead of having to vaguely claim that you definitely answered a lot of questions for a lot of people.
Of course, some companies don't respect that sort of work. I would struggle to be happy at those places.
Sounds like the lesson is to be a go-to person (for knowledge, not doing work for others) but don’t be irreplaceable. Seek to train others so you can scale your influence and you can be promoted without leaving a team or system in a bad place.
Yes absolutely, once you’re a go-to person your job is to replace yourself. Train others, share your knowledge, and get yourself out of the critical path. That’s where the promo happens.
Becoming the go-to person in a given area or process will quickly get you to "senior" which is what the article is talking about. It is easy to get stuck at this level as you say but the trick still works to get to staff the flavor just changes a bit, you have to be more of a generalist.
However, becoming an expert on something is still valuable as long as that something has value outside the company (ie: you can advertise that kind of expertise in an interview).
So becoming an expert in something is valuable and if you realize you've become the "load-bearing employee that never gets promoted or otherwise has company mobility" then it's strong signal that you need to start replying to recruiters.
I work in an organisation that has a list of essential people and I happen to work close with one of them. The entire 300 people company would seriously cease to exist if this person found a new job, got sick or whatever can happen. In my 20 years of working as a software developer and manager, I’ve never before witnessed someone who wasn’t replaceable. As you’re taught in MBA, “anyone is replaceable it’s just a matter of cost”, but that just doesn’t apply to this person because of how much operational knowledge they have. Both about the businesses, the finances and also the technical aspects. This person doesn’t make much more money than I do as a software developer. Which isn’t bad, but also nowhere near their value. They’ve also been sort of shifted around the organisation because nobody really know where to place them as they are essential to everyone. No effort is being done to document or train anyone in case they leave.
This is obviously anecdotal, but this sorry isn’t atypical from my experience. People aren’t credited (or promoted) unless they ask and work for it. My own strategy was sort of silly, I let my bosses know how much more money I could make if I took up one of the offers I get (there is a severe lack of developers in my area or the world), and well, it worked well enough to get me good raises and into management before I decided I didn’t want to be a manager at all. I’ve cruised by people who sacrificed themselves way more than I’ve ever done, simply by playing the social and political aspects of working, and I’ve seen so many people not get their due, that I really doubt the articles point. That being said, it’s easier to position yourself well in an organisation if you’re genuinely nice to work with and being a go-to person obviously helps with that. Not only because of your knowledge and willingness to help, but also because people who have that last part are generally just more approachable. But unless you figure out a way to turn that into money, then I really double it’ll help you much in the modern job market.
Quality of work doesn’t even really do a lot for people. I’ve worked with three people who did exactly the same job, and the one who produced the best quality work was paid 50% less than the two others because they were “bad at negotiating” pay… I’m sure their manager was happy about that, and it wasn’t even too dangerous as the person was simply “content” which was really a MBA way telling me the person was so uncomfortable with big life altering changes that they would likely work that job until retirement.
I agree, whenever other senior / mid-level employees quit you’ll have to pickup the slack as it’s hard to find the right competences - specially at a discounted rate.
Personally I did manage to get promoted, but not before giving notice.
I think the headline is correct, but the content isn't. Becoming the go-to person for the people with more authority than you is great. Becoming the go-to person for some people at or below your seniority level won't. Being the "python expert" who all the juniors ask python questions of won't help you, but if you can be in a situation where you frequently (probably informally at first) discuss higher level things with people above you and they value your input, I think that's a good thing. Get them used to the idea that they can go to you for input on important higher level things.
Not in my experience. Then you become an invaluable resource that those above you need to get things done. Why would you ever give that up? That's a recipe for being stuck forever.
That's the thing, you're not discussing your job responsibilities but higher level things. And not with your technical manager, but at least the person above them.
I think the article misses the point on the whole spectrum soft skills really are.
Becoming a technical domain expert doesn't automatically make you helpful to others. You might not have the ability to communicate knowledge, or the ability to foresee how being helpful is ley to moving ahead the corporate chess board.
There are unspoken rules of corporate ladder advancement, which are not discussed in OP's article.
100% agree. "promoted" to management happens under two conditions:
- ladder climbers: people who drift from shop to shop or team to team in search of the next promotion. Theyre on your team just long enough to get real visible with the boss and then theyre gone. they make terrible leadership decisions because the only thing they have to offer is charisma and feel-good meetings.
- walking wrecking-balls: people who complete about 30-45% of a project and cant communicate what theyre doing or the outcomes from their actions. they are unaccountable even to their peers, they walk away from hard tasks or challenges and if something fails they make up excuses before anyone can walk back the root cause to something they did. these get promoted to get them out of the teams way or they spread like a cancer to some other team thats never heard their name before. these people care about having an office, but nod through meetings like a supreme court justice. their direct reports will never encounter them. this is a quarantine promotion.
I noticed this happening in my current role and I am managing what I agree to more to make sure it’s something that clearly aligns with things that will get me promoted.
Right, generally the people who benefit from the expert enjoy mobility.
I think being known for learning quickly and making good decisions under pressure is what gets you promoted. At senior levels not being an asshole is also a prerequisite.
Also joining the chorus. Don't listen to this article. Don't forget not to do this for real life and friends too. If you did anything helpful you're expected to Google their specific problem for them or know how to help them. My friends are used to calling me up to ask for help all the time.
If you teach them you know how to fish once, you're their personal expert oceanographer for life.
It's more complicated than that. Becoming a go-to person may get you promoted, if the company has an adequate value system. No company is perfect, but they vary a lot and you need to find companies where they at least try to promote the right people.
It also depends on what you're the go-to person on and what the promoted position is. Being the expert on some low-level technology isn't necessarily going to help you get promoted to a managerial position or the upper tiers of technical positions.
Exactly! it varies by organization and you need to find what your organization cares about, what it values more or less. This is where talking to your manager, observing who gets promoted, etc; The worse organizations are those that say one thing and do another. No organization is perfect, but they're also not equal by far, some of them try to do the right thing, even if imperfectly.
So you need to be the go-to person when someone wants something new and fancy. And then you need to be able to drop it on others when it is done enough. And you move to next fancy new thing...
I have actually seen this happen in practice.. not saying it’s good or bad, depends on what the person wants. From your comment it seems you are implying this is bad… ? can you explain why
Quite often this results in poorly designed systems that are hard to maintain or change. As those doing the initial work and design never had to struggle with changing poorly made systems.
And as they are not present, they do not take blame for the issues caused by them.
In my experience, becoming a go-to person gets your boss promoted. This was the case in 100% of my roles, until the very last one, when I refused to become this person....and my boss was fired.
Sadly through that process my role was orphaned, so I was also let go in the round of 2,000+ layoffs that shortly followed.
And being the do the minimum person gets you put in the laid off/RIF category. Interestingly, I met up with an old coworker yesterday. We were discussing her new job, she's a senior developer, and comp/pay came up. I was shocked to see her as a promoter of 'pay equity' and she mentioned advocating for it across the team. This is someone who is a talented programmer and could command way more comp than her "peers". I personally believe in the idea of 10x programmer, because I have personally worked with them. They don't have to be super senior either. I worked with a guy who pretty much wrote the entire backend of our web server and knew the entire networking stack. Like a network engineer and Java/JVM performance God in one. He was 4 years out of school. The guy was worth his weight in gold for this company. Pretty sure he was comped way outside of the band for that reason.
Despite the cynicism here, this worked for me at Microsoft. My role was managing incidents, which I expanded to involve code review (best way to stop an incident is to find it in code review). Fit random development into spare time between developing fixes
Working on incidents gets you involved with everything. Promoted annually for four years before promo growth couldn't compete with external offer
Unfortunately many people listen to terrible advice and get exploited by companies before learning the lesson the hard way.
I'd be more inclined to believe your advice if your other comments on this topic was... realistic or actionable I guess? Caution = cynicism, and companies are either "good" (reward hard work) or "shitty" (??? not good?).
> Unfortunately many people listen to terrible advice and get exploited by companies before learning the lesson the hard way.
It's my opinion, not particularly advising anyone.
> I'd be more inclined to believe your advice if your other comments on this topic was... realistic or actionable I guess?
Not really asking you to listen to my "advice", just sharing my perspective.
> realistic or actionable I guess?
Not being cynic is pretty realistic and actionable.
> Caution = cynicism, and companies are either "good" (reward hard work) or "shitty" (??? not good?).
That's your understanding. I am a cautious person myself, a bit cynic at times, but they're different things and I'm not the one mixing them up.
You are also oversimplifying "good" and "bad" companies. I never said it was sufficient for a company to reward good work to be a good company, but good companies do reward good work (either with promotion or just better comp and benefits).
A company that doesn't reward good work is shitty yes, I did not think that was controversial.
It's hard not to be cynical when the risk and time investment is on our side while the profits are on their side.
You want us to "work hard" for the chance of getting a raise or a promotion? We're working, not playing the lottery. If we wanted these risks, we'd start a company. How about these managers write down these rewards in the employment contract instead?
> It's hard not to be cynical when the risk and time investment is on our side while the profits are on their side.
I guess we just don't see things the same way. I'm not a business owner. You're seeing things black and white. "The profits are on their side" is a black and white statement. You do get some of the profits through your salary and sometimes bonus, stock options or RSUs (depending on the company). It sounds like you're unhappy with your share that you don't feel is worth doing any "extra" effort. See my other comments here. You need to find companies where you feel this balance is fair, so you don't get taken advantage of.
> You want us to "work hard" for the chance of getting a raise or a promotion? We're working, not playing the lottery. If we wanted these risks, we'd start a company.
I don't want you to do anything. I am just sharing my experience getting promoted and then as a manager how I have seen other people get promoted. You're free to take or dismiss my experience of course.
You're severely misunderstanding magnitudes of risk. I was only a "business owner" for a brief period early in my career. I did not get a salary at all when I did not make a sell or found a customer, no social security, vacations, or any benefits to speak of. That is way closer to "playing the lottery". I did not have a good social safety net and decided to become an employee. As an employee you get a "guaranteed" salary and benefits for doing some work most of the times for white collar workers in fixed schedule. A "cushy job". You don't get a guaranteed promotion or more salary for the same work however. Do you really think you're owed promotions or increased benefits for doing the same work?
> How about these managers write down these rewards in the employment contract instead?
What do you imagine they'd write? what kind of guarantees about increased salary or promotions do you think they can make in a contract?
Management likes more:
- someone who are loyal to them
- someone who knows how to communicate to them in a right way
- someone who won't threaten them, being promoted to the new role
This advice is wrong on so many levels. What gets you promoted is being aligned with your leadership and being easy going. You'll get bonus points if your skip level likes you - it usually makes promotions come quicker. Aside from my time at Google, where technical leadership was valued - being the "go-to" person usually gets you more work for the same pay as others in your level. In fact, the "go-to" person on my current team was taken for a ride, exploited for multiple years, and then sacked in a round of layoffs because he became "difficult" (which he had every right to be for his treatment). My advice to young folks would be to join teams with a history of promotion (very important to ask during interviews) and a low turn over rate.
Man. Lots of defeatism so far. I understand the points being made, though.
Becoming a go-to person is necessary but not sufficient to advance. If all you are is a reliable Swiss army knife for the company, you will indeed be stuck with the salary and station of a reliable Swiss army knife.
The tricky part is to be able to decouple the "knowing" and the "doing." If you know how to do all the work, and you also actually do it, yes, you become the infinite sink for all of those things.
If you can, instead, be a sink of knowledge and wisdom, e.g. "here's how I'd approach the problem", "maybe you should connect with Joe in...", "hasn't this problem already been solved with...", that starts to look more like L6+ behavior.
It's the hardest pill to swallow for builders, though - that you can never be good enough at pure building to justify promotion beyond senior level. It's like professional sports. If you're a greater shooter but you can't get other people involved, there's a hard cap on how far your team can go and how far your career will go.
Different stuff gets you promoted in different places. I've absolutely worked at organizations where technical prowess and high output were rewarded with raises and promotions.
But for the most part, doing an ok job combined with being liked by your supervisor is far more effective.
jqpabc123 | 2 years ago
For all your hard work you get rewarded with ... more hard work.
JoeDaDude | 2 years ago
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/01/30/busy/
jeffrallen | 2 years ago
Teach a woman to teach a man to fish. :)
karaterobot | 2 years ago
mhss | 2 years ago
If you like what you do, and they give you new challenges that you enjoy (more pie) and more money/benefits. It's a win win scenario. I realize is not always the case and maybe in many jobs is rarely the case. My whole career almost every promotion has had substantial benefits, opportunities and growth. I am working nowadays less than I did my first 10yrs of career and doing almost 10x the comp.
jqpabc123 | 2 years ago
The shit generally follows the path of least resistance. The more you handle, the more that flows your way.
erulabs | 2 years ago
rayiner | 2 years ago
analognoise | 2 years ago
mhss | 2 years ago
analognoise | 2 years ago
And now you get nothing. Sure a few people get lucky - but that’s clearly luck with such obvious systemic issues. Like do you not know people? I know way more people who will never retire or own homes than the opposite.
People shouldn’t work hard if the deal gets worse every year. Don’t reinforce this bad system. Tear it down.
ponector | 2 years ago
Also it is more beneficial to look like you are hard working employee than actually be one.
In IT scope of the work is endless, there is no point to rush. If you finish early you'll get next ticket.
mhss | 2 years ago
000ooo000 | 2 years ago
No doubt they do, but for an idea like "hard work is usually worthwhile" to have any merit, these companies would need to be the norm, and not the subject of "they do exist, they're out there I swear!".
matheusmoreira | 2 years ago
Nope. You get rewarded with exactly how much you're able to get away with demanding via negotiation. The CEO won't suddenly swoop down and say wow what a hard working guy let's double his salary. You get rewarded if you're the only person who's able to do something but you're going to quit because a better company offered you more money. That puts them in the position of either rewarding you or watching you leave.
gamblor956 | 2 years ago
At most jobs, doing more work without a promotion already on the line just means you'll be expected to do more work going forward and your future evaluations will be based on your higher workload rather than your original baseline, which will make reaching that promotion even harder. Ask me how I know that...
tedivm | 2 years ago
I also don't think that, as I've gotten promoted, I've actually taken on that much extra work. The work itself has changed a lot, but it's work I find easier and more enjoyable so for me it almost feels like I'm taking on less. I'm also militant about my work life balance, and maintain very strict hours where I'm reachable.
mhss | 2 years ago
dctoedt | 2 years ago
One could think of humanity's work as, "we're helping to build a universe." [1]
[0] https://sacredstructures.org/mission/the-story-of-three-bric... — this story supposedly dates back to the 17th century.
[1] https://www.questioningchristian.org/2006/06/metanarratives_... (self-cite)
linehedonist | 2 years ago
dmitrygr | 2 years ago
thethethethe | 2 years ago
dmitrygr | 2 years ago
webwanderings | 2 years ago
hiddencost | 2 years ago
I really regret telling him what I was working on.
voiceblue | 2 years ago
It’s not about what you do at all, it’s just about how you play the game. Many (most?) cases of positioning oneself for promo just involve casting a bigger shadow on the wall by doing the exact same work closer to the flashlight.
At L5+, if you are not playing the game you have very little chance of promo (you will have to work harder than any L+1 around), so if you are largely just interested in building and not posturing, you should just switch companies and make a diagonal move (and then, perhaps, come back).
This is also why you can’t do anything too risky (regardless of the potential reward) at Google unless you are capable of dishing out promotions - this game is what matters to Googlers, and things that don’t help with the game are efficiently discarded.
cylinder714 | 2 years ago
bluedevilzn | 2 years ago
sidewndr46 | 2 years ago
k310 | 2 years ago
Don't be the person who knows how to feed paper in the line printer.
Or repair the coffee maker. (Nowadays, that might be "Know how to make it work when the internet goes down.")
Good article. I wonder if and how it might apply in other fields.
kstrauser | 2 years ago
"Nope, no idea."
Stick by this religiously.
phyzome | 2 years ago
basscomm | 2 years ago
packetlost | 2 years ago
immawizard | 2 years ago
Being able to get rid of (1), either through automation or delegation, allows you to go to (2). If you’re stuck on (1) for too long, it’s better to leave.
wredue | 2 years ago
Then when I left they replaced me with 4 people cause losing a decade of deep dive rather than topical knowledge hurts.
Had they promoted me, I could have just trained a new person.
ponector | 2 years ago
Also they greatly reduced bus factor. Looks like a win for the manager.
mhss | 2 years ago
sanitycheck | 2 years ago
I've known several people who never got promoted because their bosses knew they'd have to hire 2-3 people to replace them, and there was no budget for extra people.
Of course they did all quit eventually, and I assume the budget for the extra staff was found somehow - albeit too late to keep their expert.
kingTug | 2 years ago
ip26 | 2 years ago
Go-to for correctly operating a dated tool deep in the bowels of the machine? Cog.
Go-to for all questions related to the machine, its history, future, and all machines like it? Not cog.
Boiling it down, is your recognized expertise high or low in scope?
peteradio | 2 years ago
> Go-to for all questions related to the machine, its history, future, and all machines like it? Not cog.
The difference between these two is the people you work with. If people come to you to have their questions answered but can't execute on it properly then... you become #1. Of course this can be twisted around to theoretically be a you problem or it could be an endless churn of warm bodies coming through hiring.
kdmccormick | 2 years ago
Are you constantly being asked how a system works? Take some time to document it, and then answer future questions by just linking to those docs. It's harder up front, but saves you time in the long run, and also mean that come performance review time you can say "I wrote this documentation <link>!" instead of having to vaguely claim that you definitely answered a lot of questions for a lot of people.
Of course, some companies don't respect that sort of work. I would struggle to be happy at those places.
cpeterso | 2 years ago
arcticbull | 2 years ago
kec | 2 years ago
znpy | 2 years ago
However, becoming an expert on something is still valuable as long as that something has value outside the company (ie: you can advertise that kind of expertise in an interview).
So becoming an expert in something is valuable and if you realize you've become the "load-bearing employee that never gets promoted or otherwise has company mobility" then it's strong signal that you need to start replying to recruiters.
RyanOD | 2 years ago
They are the go-to person for managing projects, but not doing any of the lower level work. Just my experience.
devjab | 2 years ago
This is obviously anecdotal, but this sorry isn’t atypical from my experience. People aren’t credited (or promoted) unless they ask and work for it. My own strategy was sort of silly, I let my bosses know how much more money I could make if I took up one of the offers I get (there is a severe lack of developers in my area or the world), and well, it worked well enough to get me good raises and into management before I decided I didn’t want to be a manager at all. I’ve cruised by people who sacrificed themselves way more than I’ve ever done, simply by playing the social and political aspects of working, and I’ve seen so many people not get their due, that I really doubt the articles point. That being said, it’s easier to position yourself well in an organisation if you’re genuinely nice to work with and being a go-to person obviously helps with that. Not only because of your knowledge and willingness to help, but also because people who have that last part are generally just more approachable. But unless you figure out a way to turn that into money, then I really double it’ll help you much in the modern job market.
Quality of work doesn’t even really do a lot for people. I’ve worked with three people who did exactly the same job, and the one who produced the best quality work was paid 50% less than the two others because they were “bad at negotiating” pay… I’m sure their manager was happy about that, and it wasn’t even too dangerous as the person was simply “content” which was really a MBA way telling me the person was so uncomfortable with big life altering changes that they would likely work that job until retirement.
Shalle135 | 2 years ago
Personally I did manage to get promoted, but not before giving notice.
coding123 | 2 years ago
mort96 | 2 years ago
light_hue_1 | 2 years ago
mort96 | 2 years ago
ivanmontillam | 2 years ago
Becoming a technical domain expert doesn't automatically make you helpful to others. You might not have the ability to communicate knowledge, or the ability to foresee how being helpful is ley to moving ahead the corporate chess board.
There are unspoken rules of corporate ladder advancement, which are not discussed in OP's article.
nimbius | 2 years ago
- ladder climbers: people who drift from shop to shop or team to team in search of the next promotion. Theyre on your team just long enough to get real visible with the boss and then theyre gone. they make terrible leadership decisions because the only thing they have to offer is charisma and feel-good meetings.
- walking wrecking-balls: people who complete about 30-45% of a project and cant communicate what theyre doing or the outcomes from their actions. they are unaccountable even to their peers, they walk away from hard tasks or challenges and if something fails they make up excuses before anyone can walk back the root cause to something they did. these get promoted to get them out of the teams way or they spread like a cancer to some other team thats never heard their name before. these people care about having an office, but nod through meetings like a supreme court justice. their direct reports will never encounter them. this is a quarantine promotion.
op00to | 2 years ago
rubyfan | 2 years ago
I think being known for learning quickly and making good decisions under pressure is what gets you promoted. At senior levels not being an asshole is also a prerequisite.
graphe | 2 years ago
If you teach them you know how to fish once, you're their personal expert oceanographer for life.
DougHolland | 2 years ago
Wisdom says, work hard enough to earn your wage, but remember everything that matters in life happens after hours.
mhss | 2 years ago
oscillonoscope | 2 years ago
mhss | 2 years ago
Ekaros | 2 years ago
Got it...
thunkshift1 | 2 years ago
Ekaros | 2 years ago
And as they are not present, they do not take blame for the issues caused by them.
throwawaysugar | 2 years ago
Sadly through that process my role was orphaned, so I was also let go in the round of 2,000+ layoffs that shortly followed.
Eumenes | 2 years ago
mmcgaha | 2 years ago
__s | 2 years ago
Working on incidents gets you involved with everything. Promoted annually for four years before promo growth couldn't compete with external offer
Having good managers is definitely important
mhss | 2 years ago
mjb | 2 years ago
My advice is to be thoughtful about your career and understand your company and industry's value system, but avoid cynicism and cynical people.
guitarbill | 2 years ago
I'd be more inclined to believe your advice if your other comments on this topic was... realistic or actionable I guess? Caution = cynicism, and companies are either "good" (reward hard work) or "shitty" (??? not good?).
mhss | 2 years ago
It's my opinion, not particularly advising anyone.
> I'd be more inclined to believe your advice if your other comments on this topic was... realistic or actionable I guess?
Not really asking you to listen to my "advice", just sharing my perspective.
> realistic or actionable I guess?
Not being cynic is pretty realistic and actionable.
> Caution = cynicism, and companies are either "good" (reward hard work) or "shitty" (??? not good?).
That's your understanding. I am a cautious person myself, a bit cynic at times, but they're different things and I'm not the one mixing them up.
You are also oversimplifying "good" and "bad" companies. I never said it was sufficient for a company to reward good work to be a good company, but good companies do reward good work (either with promotion or just better comp and benefits).
A company that doesn't reward good work is shitty yes, I did not think that was controversial.
matheusmoreira | 2 years ago
You want us to "work hard" for the chance of getting a raise or a promotion? We're working, not playing the lottery. If we wanted these risks, we'd start a company. How about these managers write down these rewards in the employment contract instead?
mhss | 2 years ago
I guess we just don't see things the same way. I'm not a business owner. You're seeing things black and white. "The profits are on their side" is a black and white statement. You do get some of the profits through your salary and sometimes bonus, stock options or RSUs (depending on the company). It sounds like you're unhappy with your share that you don't feel is worth doing any "extra" effort. See my other comments here. You need to find companies where you feel this balance is fair, so you don't get taken advantage of.
> You want us to "work hard" for the chance of getting a raise or a promotion? We're working, not playing the lottery. If we wanted these risks, we'd start a company.
I don't want you to do anything. I am just sharing my experience getting promoted and then as a manager how I have seen other people get promoted. You're free to take or dismiss my experience of course.
You're severely misunderstanding magnitudes of risk. I was only a "business owner" for a brief period early in my career. I did not get a salary at all when I did not make a sell or found a customer, no social security, vacations, or any benefits to speak of. That is way closer to "playing the lottery". I did not have a good social safety net and decided to become an employee. As an employee you get a "guaranteed" salary and benefits for doing some work most of the times for white collar workers in fixed schedule. A "cushy job". You don't get a guaranteed promotion or more salary for the same work however. Do you really think you're owed promotions or increased benefits for doing the same work?
> How about these managers write down these rewards in the employment contract instead?
What do you imagine they'd write? what kind of guarantees about increased salary or promotions do you think they can make in a contract?
pavluha | 2 years ago
Management likes more: - someone who are loyal to them - someone who knows how to communicate to them in a right way - someone who won't threaten them, being promoted to the new role
whynot-123 | 2 years ago
el-dude-arino | 2 years ago
d357r0y3r | 2 years ago
Becoming a go-to person is necessary but not sufficient to advance. If all you are is a reliable Swiss army knife for the company, you will indeed be stuck with the salary and station of a reliable Swiss army knife.
The tricky part is to be able to decouple the "knowing" and the "doing." If you know how to do all the work, and you also actually do it, yes, you become the infinite sink for all of those things.
If you can, instead, be a sink of knowledge and wisdom, e.g. "here's how I'd approach the problem", "maybe you should connect with Joe in...", "hasn't this problem already been solved with...", that starts to look more like L6+ behavior.
It's the hardest pill to swallow for builders, though - that you can never be good enough at pure building to justify promotion beyond senior level. It's like professional sports. If you're a greater shooter but you can't get other people involved, there's a hard cap on how far your team can go and how far your career will go.
kderbyma | 2 years ago
promotion for promotion sake is unhealthy, and a symptom of a culture losing its identity
sneed_chucker | 2 years ago
But for the most part, doing an ok job combined with being liked by your supervisor is far more effective.
fifilura | 2 years ago
There are 4 types of questions
1. Questions from architects/leads
2. Questions from peers which learn from what I am saying
3. Questions from peers which do not learn but wants me to do their job
4. Questions from product owners
Naturally 5. Own work - suffers.
1, 2 & 4 are ok. I would like to get rid of 3.
I think my way out would be to promoting 2. to help me with 1, 3 and 4. So I can do more of 5.
fifilura | 2 years ago
If you don't get promoted, there is a risk that you become the guy that is just there to solve everyone else's problem.