Comment by ManlyBread
2 months ago
Ah, the classic "work even harder and do things you're not paid for with zero guarantee that someone will appreciate what you're doing while the company reaps the benefits". What a novel thought, I am so glad I clicked the article, especially since the author isn't even speaking from experience so he has nothing to back up his blogpost with.
Listen, you don't have to do this and are free to disagree.
However, this method has worked and will continue to work. Lots of people are fine just doing their shift and leaving, that's ok. Some people are not satisfied with that and want more, and there are strategies to do more work and get paid to do so.
Both of these comments have a kernel of truth.
Yes, you must do more than average to get promoted.
But also yes, if you do more and more and don't get the rewards you want, don't just continue. Either scale back again, or modify your strategy, or apply this strategy elsewhere.
I'm seeing widely opposing takes here; my experience is that the advice is correct depending on where you are. I've worked in places where someone who works 130% is seen as company's profit. But I'm currently at a place where making an extra effort is definitely rewarded with promotions.
I've literally never gotten a promotion without taking on the additional responsibilities first. I wouldn't expect a promotion for just doing time at a company like a prison sentence. If they didn't promote me then I would have immediately moved on.
There's a matrix, with each cell being weighted differently.
Do free work. Do good work. Be liked by your superiors.
And sadly "good work" is weighted the lowest. And if you are liked enough by your superiors, that's often enough.
And you are actively disliked by your superiors, it does not matter how much work you do or how good it is. You will plateau.
And the advice is not (necessarily) "work extra, unpaid hours".
Exactly, working harder doesn’t mean putting in extra hours. It means taking on projects with larger scope, impact and ambiguity during your normal working hours
It's almost as if it depends on the context and there isn't a simplistic bumper sticker approach.
Not to diminish your skepticism, but your reply comes off jaded in a way that might be hurting you. The author's suggestion for employees seeking promotion is to operate on a higher level than they're asked to and keep operating in that fashion for a sustained window of time. Show growth, in other words.
This reads to me like you translated GP’s cynical post into something more palatable to the politically-minded. You’ve said the same thing.
They're both correct, in different contexts.
Some workplaces see people going above and beyond and reward that. Promotions come from operating at the level you want to be promoted to.
Some workplaces see it as a signal that they don't need a promotion because they can get the higher level work from you without the need to pay you more.
Know which one you're in before you decide how to approach it. If you've been there a while you should be able to figure out how things work. It's important to see how they actually work and not how you think they should work, otherwise you can end up doing a bunch of extra work for free.
It’s a lot easier just to do enough to talk the talk and get another job…
This just comes across as extraordinarily whiny.
The core of what the author is saying is true, I've experienced it myself (not a promotion, but a raise).
Taking on more than your responsibility is one way to do it, another (with some overlap) is to become indispensable.
In some cases, this means doing more work than your job entails, but not always. It can be something as simple as automating a task that someone else was doing by hand.
When you start stacking up little things that make you more valuable to the company, it's in its own best interest to find ways to keep you (via promotions, raises, benefits, etc).
There isn't a guarantee of anything here, but it definitely sets you up for success.
A thousand times more than sitting around whining that something isn't your job or that the company is being mean.
You should work harder and do things you aren’t paid for. In my 30 year experience across 10 jobs - everything from small lifestyle companies to BigTech and currently working as a staff consultant - it’s not to get a promotion at your current job, it’s to have a story to tell at your next job.
Speaking of BigTech specifically, the first company I worked for with a real promotion process that meant anything, the promo process is brutal and then you still get paid less than someone coming in at the same level.
The best bet is to get another job at another company at a higher level (or even at the same level that pays more).
Felt like AI slop. I used to do what it recommends, and it got me nowhere other than more stress and higher expectations from senior management.
I was reprimanded at three different software companies for doing exactly this, and not "staying in my lane" or "trying to do the senior person's job". So it only applies if you're already ahead of schedule on all your assigned work (difficult if they keep increasing your backlog), and the manager likes you but sees you as non-threatening, and people aren't territorial about RFCs.
Part of growing up is also knowing WHEN to do the extra, thinking about whether this will undermine people who dont like to be undermined, and then more fundamentally, what the hell am I doing in such a politically toxic place?
Its not just about going above and beyond. Its going above and beyond exactly where it will get you the best outcome and nowhere else.
The number of times I've been praised for going "above and beyond" has been absolutely dwarfed by "stay in your lane". Turns out, a lot of people don't appreciate you trying to prove you could do their job.
I mean is it not clear that companies are just an abstraction for a network of people, and you obviously must be be good with those people, ie seduce them into promoting you. And is it not clear that on the other side, you must keep your options open such that you find an alternative (job) if they are weird / toxic / dont like you / you dont like them?
Reads like of those things people post on LinkedIn.
Same. If anything it only welded me in my position, because I was just very valuable doing what I was doing. Absolutely crap advice, IMHO.
Were you simply doing more of the same or were you actually doing the job of the level above you? Those are not the same.
I tested both. None worked.
It is a little bit like “it’s not what you know, is what you can prove”: I mean: “it’s not what you do, is what the boss of your boss sees”. And I emphasize “boss of your boss” because him is who you have to impress (or somebody 2 levels above, anyway).
Also in moderately big to big companies, is all about contacts and personal marketing, which could (and typically is) orthogonal to your actual work.
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It actually worked for me, got my last promotion that way (IC -> EM)
I don’t consider a line level manager a promotion. I consider that the fifth level of hell.
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It uh.. was kind of weird that a junior dev wrote.. an.. rfc? I sense that this is a company that has somewhat adapted that concept for some kind of internal communication, or it's AI slop. All the jobs I'd ever had would probably call something like that a "design proposal" or similar.
Maybe this is a folksy anecdote about a junior developer working for John Email designing the protocol for trinary morse code over a token ring of twisted pair barbed wire. An RFC for that kind of project would be natural.
In the spirit of this, I propose we start calling things like flowcharts, SVG images of digraphs, UML diagrams etc "articles of war" just to spice things up.
It says "more junior engineer on the team" which could mean senior vs stuff, or regular vs senior. At least that's how I understood it.
I've almost always been promoted by doing this. If not, I'm able to use the paid training to get another higher paying job at a different company.
after uBlocking the feed on LinkedIn the Kool Aid slop is now here as well ...