Comment by crazygringo
1 month ago
While this is true... it's also letting yourself be massively taken advantage of, and underpaid.
Yes, the best way to get promoted is to do work above your level. The problem is, you're not getting paid what you deserve for that. If you're always doing this, you're always being underpaid by a full level.
Which is why much better advice is to try to get promoted by switching companies and jumping a level in the process.
Managers certainly want to take advantage of you by getting you to overperform without being overpaid. But employees should do everything they can not to fall for it. Which usually requires getting companies to compete over you.
As a boss-man myself, I’ve seen this “don’t let them take advantage of you” sentiment expressed in many discussions about comp and promotions, but I can’t really say I understand it. Am I just out of touch?
As I read it, the article is simply trying to help people understand what kind of work is valuable to a company and therefore what they should focus on to make themselves valuable. I presume that making yourself valuable pays dividends, including promotions! Somehow the idea of going to work and not trying your best because “you’re not getting paid … for that” just feels so cynical and divorced from how I’ve seen successful people grow and make big bucks in tech.
(And this is all a bit separate, of course, than the debate about whether staying at a company or job hopping is better for career trajectory.)
> I presume that making yourself valuable pays dividends, including promotions!
This has not been my experience at all. I've had multiple positions where I took on multiple challenges and responsibilities outside my role, reshaped the team and took the lead on getting things shipped, made sure my manager was more successful, and spent a lot of energy making all this happens... for nothing.
> and divorced from how I’ve seen successful people grow and make big bucks in tech.
Almost all of the people I've seen grow successfully never do any of this "take on extra responsibility" stuff. The vast majority were early hires that got along well with leadership in a fast growing company. Most of the promotions I've gotten felt almost arbitrary, and largely happened from being at the right place at the right time.
To be honest, I remain a hard worker who takes on extra responsibilities, simply because I enjoy it. I like solving problems and shipping things, it makes work fun. But I don't expect any recognition for it (even on annual reviews). The biggest reward for me is helping other people be successful and building cool things. Anyone working hard for a promotion or any recognition from the company is very likely wasting their time.
> that got along well with leadership in a fast growing company
I may be reading too much into your post but I'll say that this sentiment is a common pattern I see in many competent senior folks who think they deserve promotions into roles above senior. Getting along with leadership is a huge asset for for this type of leadership role. It means that you stay aligned and push in the same direction together.
If you're not going to get along well with your leadership you need to be much much better than everyone around you - which is a significantly higher bar to clear. And getting along well is a skill. It's usually not the skill people want to learn but it's hugely valuable to be able to be chummy with a difficult exec.
> Somehow the idea of going to work and not trying your best
You make a great point -- let me further explain so I'm not misunderstood.
If the person is putting in the same 40 hrs/wk (or whatever is standard) but just "doing their best", then there's no problem.
But in my experience, your manager is expecting you to do all of your assigned role (e.g. write code), but then also do a bunch of stuff on top -- e.g. leading and taking ownership of new initiatives that is extra work. Usually something like 10-20 hours' worth per week. And so now people are working evenings and weekends to get that promotion, spending less time with their family. And a lot of them still don't get the promotion. For years, or even ever. This is all free labor for the company. They get away paying for a team of 4 instead of a team of 5.
That's what I'm pushing back on. In practice, it's rarely doing your existing work but better -- it's doing a bunch of extra work that takes more time. Because nobody ever says "hey show that you can take on these new responsibilities, and so do less of your original responsibilities".
Contrast this to actually being promoted, where some of your previous responsibilities are now actually delegated to others, because your job is now focused more on higher-level design and/or management.
I don't think that's how it works. Otherwise, a level 3 engineer would be working 40 hours a week but 4 engineer would be working 60 hours a week, which isn't the case.
These additional things a senior does that a junior doesn't aren't "write more code", they're "coordinate with people outside your team more", "be more self-directed", "be more reliable", etc. Things which don't take more time, but which juniors don't do.
> But in my experience, your manager is expecting you to do all of your assigned role (e.g. write code), but then also do a bunch of stuff on top -- e.g. leading and taking ownership of new initiatives that is extra work.
Aside from AWS, who's famously bad at this, my experience is that this is usually because people want a faster career push.
Imagine Jim, 8 years into his career. Jim is pretty good and his work takes him 30-40 hours a week. If he worked another 5 years in the same role it'd probably drop to 20 and be chill.
Jim wants to get promoted. If he waited the 5 years he could do it working 40 hours a week. But he wants it now, and since he's not as good as he will be he needs to work 60. What does Jim do? He works the 60.
There's nothing wrong with this choice, I made it, I'm happy with my choice. I might make it again in the future, or not.
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The problem is that we're simultaneously talking about healthy and rotten companies. In a healthy company your manager tells you "if you want a promotion, this and this needs to happen" and then you get a promotion and a pay raise. Meanwhile in my company:
- I was given a project "please convince half of the company to drop everything and do work for our team"
- I told my manager "I don't know what you're expecting from me" and he said "I don't care"
- A coworker completed his project, but then was told that the promotion requirements changed
- A coworker was promoted, said that it was a big mistake because pay rose 10% but responsibilities 200%
The thing is, online discourse has little reason to discuss healthy companies. Sharing tips and tricks how to survive in a dysfunctional organization is much more interesting.
> please convince half of the company to drop everything and do work for our team
And don't forget to do that on IC level, without official shot caller title.
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> Somehow the idea of going to work and not trying your best because “you’re not getting paid … for that” just feels so cynical and divorced from how I’ve seen successful people grow and make big bucks in tech
The question is always how long you are "working" at the higher level.
I have worked at jobs where I was working 2 levels higher then I was for close to 3 years before my new manager came in and fixed that shit (got two promotions in 2 years).
As an individual contributor you are diluting your IC's value of the same people level if you are working at a higher level for free, the expectations is then that everyone else at your level does it and then it becomes the new normal, it's the "A rising tide lifts all boats" but in a negative connotation.
In my experience, the issue is that performing at the next level is not a guarantee for promotion. So when you do work at the next level, they can just say “it’s not sustained enough” or whatever reason and then you’re stuck — can’t really produce less so you end up looking for a way out because all that work was kind of for nothing.
I look for opportunities outside my job requirements to learn and grow but it gets really tiring and exhausting when you’re not rewarded for it. Basically there is a lot of upside for the employer but for the employee it’s a bit of a crapshoot
> Am I just out of touch?
You are.
> Somehow the idea of going to work and not trying your best because “you’re not getting paid … for that” just feels so cynical and divorced from how I’ve seen successful people grow and make big bucks in tech.
Why don't you take a pay cut then? I mean, money is not everything, right? You can always pay your mortgage in integrity, work ethic or another buzzword.
Though last year I went to Hawaii and they refused my "great job, man" tokens, greedy assholes!
You are not out of touch. You may simply have spent time at great companies.
The OP’s advice is solid, but it assumes your manager will actively help promote you or work toward that outcome. In some companies, or with some managers, that support does not exist. There may be no incentive for them to do so. This does not necessarily come from ill intent, but rather from different organizational expectations.
Different companies can have vastly different work cultures, even if they're in the same location. So in a sense we're all a bit "out of touch" with each other.
Most days I go to work, I try my best, because if it turns out I don't get paid what I'm worth, I will F off somewhere else and take all this experience with me. And every time I've done that, I've had a significant pay rise.
Yes
This makes sense and here is slightly different perspective to this.
The company I was at had this haloed culture of promotions and I saw people sat on a certain IC level for over 5 years chasing the carrot. Some of them were close to a decade at the same level.
Now, this company had several sub-orgs and it was possible to switch positions to a different team or an entirely different sub-org altogether. And guess what ? No up-leveling and no salary hikes because the overall company doesn't allow the sub-orgs to compete with each other.
Fair enough. Makes sense. If they allowed it, it would be chaotic.
But for some reason, their is a culture of making employees compete with each other ! To the point that the apparent lowest performer will be asked to leave the company ! (There are other ramifications to this "system" but this is not the discussion for those)
The lesson I learnt was to chose your battles wisely and be prepared for interviews every single day... because in a way it indeed felt like everyday I was interviewing/competing for the job I already had... why not dial it up to eleven ?
Once you feel prepared, then actually simply start interviewing. This year I am targetting at least six (once every two months) solid interviews. The more multi-stage-loops the better because that gives me the chance to politely drop out of the process at any stage. The more leetcode hards the better because leetcode hards are set in a specific way and the interviewer has to be super smart to follow up with something novel.
This way, I think (correct me if I am wrong) I am implicitly up-skilling and getting better at my job AND in a state of preparedness to walk away if I felt I needed to.
Managers be managing and all that $h1t... they have their jobs to do, I have my life to deal with as well. I will control what I can control.
Do the work one level up for a while and add it to your resume when searching for that higher level job at another company. Or maybe your current company will surprise you with a promotion in the meantime.
Or don't? Because the other company may hire you at the higher level anyways, that's the point. Because you're getting multiple companies to compete for the experience you already have. It's your task to demonstrate in interviews that you have the skills for that higher level. Which is a huge shortcut.
And "maybe your current company will surprise you" just sounds like being taken advantage of to me. Because the reality is they probably won't. Not at anywhere near the same speed, usually.
Companies usually want to see evidence you’ve done the kind of work required in the job you’re applying for.
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You seem way too concerned with "nickle-and-diming" your employer. Which is just as sad as an employer who nickle-and-dimes their employees.
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> If you're always doing this, you're always being underpaid by a full level.
This doesn't actually follow, for a variety of reasons, including that jobs have compensation ranges and in a lot of cases the bottom of one is pretty close to, or even below, the top of the previous one.
One of the big reasons that changing companies was good from a compensation perspective was 4 year initial offers. Upleveled job-switches do happen, but from what I've seen they don't usually happen much faster than internal promotions, and often they happen slower!
>>Which is why much better advice is to try to get promoted by switching companies and jumping a level in the process.
This is why most companies don't offer a promotion as a part of hiring process, and are mostly hiring at currently levels, but at a pay raise.
In some cases where a promotion is available, they often pay below your current compensation, which defeats the whole point of the process.
This is definitely something to be aware of - especially with larger companies that aren't growing fast and this culture begins to be baked in. You see so many colleagues going the extra mile past their role requirements to earn that rare promotion, essentially jockeying to be in the running. All hands are about 'calling out' great performers and thanking them. Thank them by paying them more please.
As soon as they get the promotion, the work piles on even more, and they won't be given the amount they would if they switched companies.
Good counterpoint. Throughout my rather long career I've known a few overachievers. The majority of them did not get promoted, and the ones who did get promoted were actually up-titled -- new title, miniscule pay rise.
Then there are those who do the bare minimum, have frequent unplanned absences and then have the gall to ask to be promoted to a senior level simply because they've been employed at a junior level for 2 years. (I heard this from a particularly gossipy manager. People usually never disclose these things.)
One thing is universally true. If you develop a reputation for being the person that regularly gets things done, somebody somewhere will notice. And that will improve your career prospects in the long run.