Comment by dwoldrich

The best promotion advice I have is to pick a great manager who is genuinely motivated to help you advance in your career. You won't get promoted easily by a manager who's checked out or likes counting beans.

Managers like that are few and far between. If you find one, make it clear to them you want to follow them because they'll get snatched from you in no time and be themselves promoted far far away.

How to find said manager? Ask around, do a little org chart recon in Outlook and do some networking. Where is the drama kept to a minimum in the org? What teams seem to be succeeding both internally and across to other teams. Are there teams where the techies are outspoken (positively) within the org and making a name for themselves in the org? Get to know the managers for those teams.

You may have heard people quit when their manager is a tyrant, this is very true! But there is a middling type of manager, not a horrible person, but also one that isn't helping you along either. Maybe plot and scheme on how to gracefully move to other teams you could better contribute to.