promotion

promotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopiopromotion – Kinopio
Success criteria
Overview
Finding the right team
Thinking about projects

“Home-grown” talent, grew through company as an IC

15+ reports

<=10 reports

Veteran in the EM role (>3 years of experience)

Relatively new to the EM role (<1 year of experience)

stellar track record of getting engineers promoted fast

Has never (or rarely) gotten an engineer promoted before

strong EMs

risky EMs

Talk to engineers, EMs will always try to get you to join

The best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour

Your EM is the most important person in your promo

Look for EMs with a track record of growing people

growing as an engineer is all about behaviour and mindset change

master your promo packet

get maximum credit for each project

define a clear, concrete plan for getting to the next level

have a framework to understand the different levels

understand how promotion actually works

course objectives

5. quality of delivery

Leading the team through SEVs

Aligning other teams with yours

Helping the team move faster without causing burnout

Shielding the team from XFN issues

how hard were the things you worked on? could other people do them?

4. depth of contribution

Very senior engineers have reputations as “steady hands”

have clear impact

a successful delivery should:

be on time

ideally, have no bugs / cause production issues

Junior and mid-level engineers are generally not held responsible for impact

Scope and impact is determined by higher level engineers / PMs

Attribution

Key idea: think holistically about the problem

build-oriented (common in smaller/newer orgs)

metrics-driven goals (common in larger orgs)

1. impact

The impact of a project is how much it contributes to your team’s goals (OKRs/KPIs)

You are in charge of your growth

3. observe great engineers: look for how they get things done

what does their calendar look like?

what kinds of people are they talking to?

how do they contribute to meetings?

how do they organise their code and prs?

how do they plan projects and design systems?

Quality of delivery

✅ How can we expand the roadmap to add scope?

Depth of contribution

Organisational complexity

❌ I need to have the biggest and most impactful projects

Technical complexity

There are six main axes to consider when evaluating a project

impact is only one component of a project!

Impact

You should break down expectations by the different performance review axes

Create a document with clear expectations and update it over time

2. Create an expectations plan

1. Tell your manager you want to go for promo

Frame the discussion as mutual benefit - you want to expend your impact

“I really enjoy working on this team. I want to do more to increase my impact and empower my teammates - what are the steps I need to take to get to that next level?”

Normally this takes 3-6 months to get onboarded and operating efficiently

Be empathetic: your teammates are asking too but there are limited slots

0. Set yourself up as a strong performer before starting promo talks. Get feedback on how you’re trending

PROMOTION

therefore, at most companies, you get promo’d when you’ve shown you can operate at the next level

we want to be somewhere in the middle

people just naively think doing good work will result in them being promoted

promos are a lagging indicator of your skills

people become promotion-obsessed and it’s their motivation for doing anything

The key to understanding promotion

Promotion requires doing things that are fundamentally new to you. Your behaviour and mindset has to change in a meaningful way.

there are two extremes when it comes to thinking about promos

3. Grow like a rocket

2. Be hungry, consistently add value over a long period of time

you can’t job hop to success, you don’t get to see the whole SDLC or compound your knowledge/relationships

HOWEVER, it is important to find the right team/manager/projects for each stage of your career

seniority = number of people that you’re adding value to

1. Find an organisation that pushes you to get better and rewards you for it

promotion is more beneficial to your growth for the time invested

how to become a 10x engineer

interviewing is parasitic - it takes up a lot of your time and the prep tends to be not relevant to your job