I’ve seen many early career engineers become frustrated that they don’t get promoted at the end of a promotion cycle and I’ve seen just as many managers surprised that those engineers expected to be promoted! No one tells you in school that getting promoted is a skill and an active process. In this post I’ll share the steps I use with my team to give them the best chance at success for advancing up a career ladder by first understanding and then actively engaging in the promotion process.
This post takes you on the happy path to getting promoted, so it assumes you have a competent manager and relatively mature company. It’s not meant to help you troubleshoot issues with an ineffective manager or dysfunctional company. Maybe I’ll get to those topics another time…
Understand your context
Before you begin, start by looking around at yourself, your manager, and your company. This builds understanding that will set you up for success later.
One misconception I think we all start our career with is that hard work will automatically be recognized and rewarded. While impactful contributions are important they alone do not guarantee advancement, we also need to advocate for ourselves. Additionally, many engineers narrowly define success by focusing solely on the quantity of code shipped or tickets closed, overlooking the broader impact expected as you move up to higher levels of the career ladder.
I often see engineers surprised to learn that promotions do not happen quickly; the journey to advancement typically unfolds over months or even years. I think early in our careers we can feel frustrated because we feel little control over our career trajectories. In reality, each of us possesses significant agency over our professional paths, and understanding this can empower you to take charge of your growth.
So before you beging the promotion path, start by understanding the promotion process and expectations for you, your manager, and your company.
Understand yourself
Start by asking yourself why you want to get promoted. Consider what the new role entails and whether it aligns with your interests. Ask yourself if you think you’ll find fulfillment in the added responsibilities? Moving up often means increasing collaboration with others and exercising influence without direct control. Reflect on whether you are comfortable with this dynamic.
Additionally, promotions can bring additional pressure and expectations. Check in with yourself whether you are in a good place to handle these challenges. Taking the time to understand yourself will help you make informed decisions about your career path and set realistic goals for your advancement.
Understand your manager
It’s important to remember that your manager is likely not the final decision-maker in the promotion process. I often describe my role to my team as being “an advocate, not a decider.” This is key to understand how to work with your manager: you are partners in the journey toward promotion.
Managers face challenges such as budgets, the careers of other employees, limited project opportunities, and finite social capital. These constraints apply to their superiors as well. Understanding the context in which your manager operates can help you approach them with realism and help prevent the disappointment or bad feelings if they can’t get you promoted right away.
By understanding your manager’s role and working collaboratively, you can create a supportive environment that enhances your chances of promotion.
Understand your company
To navigate your path to promotion it’s important to understand your company’s promotion cycle. Find out how often promotions occur - are they annual, bi-annual, or based on project completions? Knowing the timeline will help you plan your career conversations accordingly.
Be aware of any experience or company culture requirements for the positions you aspire to. For example, a requirement for both Senior and Staff level engineers may be “exhibiting high ownership of projects.” However, a seasoned manager will be able to tell you what ownership at each level will look like. Chances are the bar is raised for Staff engineers, so it’s a good idea to ask your manager what they have observed regarding the implicit expectations in the career ladder.
By understanding the promotion cycle and the requirements for each position, you can strategically position yourself for success.
The Recipe
Make it easy for your manager to show that you have the skills the company says are valuable.
Now that you understand the context, your goal is to make it easy for your manager to advocate for you. To do that, let’s look at the different roles your company, your manager, and you have in the promotion process.
Your company’s role is to provide clear expectations of every level on the career ladder and set fair, equitable, and predictable promotion practices.
Your manager’s role is to set you up to succeed and sell your successes. They should engage in advice-giving (mentorship), practice active listening and curiosity (coaching), and provide empowerment (sponsorship). Lara Hogan has a great post on how managers use these three skills to help you build your career.
Your role is to do the professional and technical development necessary to justify a promotion.
So the receipe for success is to use the company’s definition of the next role and provide clear examples of how you meet these expectations. Likely you will have some gaps that you need to develop, so you will need a plan to develop those skills and a way to track your ability to acquire them.
Let’s walk through step by step how you and your manager can create a narrative that shows a throughline from the career ladder to your abilities.
Start with a conversation
I cannot stress this enough: talk to your manager! I’ve seen so many engineers disappointed when they didn’t get a promotion nobody knew they wanted!
Early in the promotion cycle (like immediately after the last one ends), sit down with your manager and clearly communicate what you want and why you believe you are ready for promotion. Approach this conversation as a partnership; your manager is there to help you succeed. Keep in mind part of their job is to grow people on their team, so in addition to being invested in you as a person, when you advance it reflects well on them too.
Not only do early conversations give your manager ample time to coach, mentor, and sponsor you through the promotion cycle, often managers will start informally raising your name for a promotion months before the promotion cycle begins. Your manager likely can only get a small handful of promotions per cycle, so by speaking up early you are giving yourself the best chance of getting promoted later.
Assess your skills
Begin by conducting a skills assessment based on your company’s career ladder. Your company’s definition of the role serves as your primary benchmark for success. Start by reviewing the job descriptions for your current position and the next level you aspire to reach. Identify the key behaviors and outcomes outlined in these descriptions and create a checklist.
For each behavior or outcome, evaluate your current performance as “developing,” “achieved,” or “excels.” To make this assessment meaningful, provide specific examples for those areas where you believe you have achieved or excelled. Once you have completed your self-assessment, review it with your manager. This step is crucial as your manager may have a different perspective on your level based on their experiences with the company and their interactions with other engineers. While it can be challenging to hear feedback that differs from your self-assessment, listening to your manager’s insights will better prepare you for long-term success, even if it feels disheartening in the moment.
This assessment is the most critical step because it ties your skills and development to what the company says success looks like. This also helps set expectations for you and your manager about how likely a promotion will be given your current progress.
Write down a plan
Use the skills assessment as a foundation to build a development plan in collaboration with your manager. Group related competencies together and identify practical, measurable ways to achieve them. For instance, if you need to develop the following skills:
- Researching and developing best practices for technology
- Demonstrating an understanding of software development by proposing alternative solutions and evaluating them
- Communicating designs and decisions to engineers of different levels and abilities in a clear and actionable manner
You might set a specific development action such as “having three Requests for Comments (RFCs) proposing technical changes to our system approved by the team this year.”
This development plan will focus your efforts this year on filling the skill gaps between your current and next level. This will also help your manager identify stretch projects for you and provide targeted coaching and mentoring.
Make it a point to review your progress with your manager at least quarterly. This ongoing dialogue will keep your development plan aligned with your goals and ensure you’re on the right track.
Summarize successes
Tracking your own progress is your responsibility, not your manager’s. Your manager has several other engineers they are working with and likely several responsibilities you won’t see. Tracking every success you’ve had is hard for someone else, so make it easy on them by summarizing your success in something like a brag doc. Your career is more important to you than anyone else, so take ownership of it.
For higher-level engineers, I recommend maintaining weekly updates that can serve as the basis for a future brag doc. This document will capture a broad swath of impacts, many of which you may forget over time. Having a real-time document makes it easier for you to provide a summary later.
Keep in mind your manager will likely have to write or present some sort of case for you to their leaders. These may be people you’ve never met! So you want to arm your manager with as much concrete information as possible so they can build the strongest case for you.
The outcome
Ultimately, the outcome of your promotion journey is outside your control and likely beyond your manager’s control as well. While no one can guarantee a promotion, I can assure you that if you follow this career recipe you will emerge as a better, stronger, and more respected engineer by the end of the process.
If you receive the promotion, congratulations! Celebrate this significant achievement and take pride in the hard work that got you there.
If you don’t get promoted, take the time to ask for feedback when you’re ready to hear it. Hopefully, your manager can help you identify any gaps that you can address during the next cycle. Remember, setbacks and disappointments are a natural part of any career. It’s how you respond to these challenges that ultimately determines your long-term success. Embrace the learning opportunities, stay resilient, and continue to focus on your growth.
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