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After smashing through OKRs and projects, my manager is evasive on a promotion. Empirical evidence shows how my work frees up others and how libraries I've crea

After smashing through OKRs and projects, my manager is evasive on a promotion. Empirical evidence shows how my work frees up others and how libraries I've created have saved time in future projects. Empirical evidence also shows how my work ultimately makes it to production and how I've been at the forefront of crossteam coordination to get projects delivered 100%. Something even other seniors are struggling with on our team. It's a genuine problem. Peer managers are happy working with me. Peer engineer reviews are good. Director is happy. But my own manager just evades this conversation by saying bull such as "oh, but those projects had a senior on them" or "oh, that's just crud apis". And this is after 9 months of "working towards the next level". He now says that he wants me to work on another challenging project and prove that I can deliver it timely. I feel like he's bullshitting me and playing with my life. I am very demotivated from trying hard or doing anything for this manager. I keep asking myself, "What's the goddamn point? He's going to bullshit me anyway again". Has someone else experienced this? Is this normal? I prefer not jumping ship but this kind of evasive bullshittery is affecting my mental health.

nullsense 6y ago
You're playing his game and he's winning.
Aeolun 6y ago
Set up a 1-on-1 with the director to discuss your managers behavior? Not something to be done lightly, if you are already planning to jump ship it can hardly hurt.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Don’t do this. You will just expose the wound and ruin whatever relationship you have with various parts of the company (going above chain of command). Find another job.
  - yowlingcat 6y ago
    Well, what I think you're getting at is this kind of a tactic is inherently escalatory. But the truth is, if you want to get what you want, you need to be willing to play hardball and apply leverage. Of course, the most important part of that is BATNA, which coincides with what you said -- find another job. Where I disagree with you is that it will ruin whatever relationship you have with various parts of the company. Going "above the chain of command" is actually pretty normal and institutionalized process at functional companies -- it's called the skip-level meeting, and it's a deliberate check/feedback mechanism on line managers over-extending on managing upwards rather than downwards. I'd actually argue the opposite point, which is that organizations that fail to properly implement skip-level meetings are missing out on an important mechanism which ensures the chain of command is performant and rooting out structural rot. As a spot check, my observations on every org I've worked at basically vindicate this.
    - runawaybottle 6y ago
      So let’s reframe this. If you and your girl/guy have a relationship problem, and he/she goes to another man/woman to counsel, quite frankly, I’d never look at them the same again. Life is not perfect because humans are involved. People will take it some way. Anyway, for what it’s worth, I bypassed chain of command and it went exactly as you’d expect. If you are my girl, don’t cry on another man’s shoulder. These are stories of old. I don’t know, if this was a Stackoverflow question, which would be the best answer? Given how complicated life is, I’d wager my answer with a 50% probability, along with yours, is as close as we’ll get to a ‘best answer’, assuming we follow the spirit of the developer community.
      - yowlingcat 6y ago
        I think you're proving my point unintentionally. If you're at the point where the relationship isn't working out, it's actually in everyone's best interest for you to break up and date other people. If you were happy, you wouldn't be looking. You became unhappy because you were unfulfilled in the relationship, because what you were looking for was something the other person could not provide, or vice versa. What is the virtuous thing to do? Is it to silently stew and settle, or is it to ask for what you want, and if you don't get it and think you can find it elsewhere, leave to do so? The answer is obvious. All the other stuff you mention about "never look[ing] at them the same again" is more related to your ego, sense of insecurity and lack of self awareness more than anything. Once you pare those away, the objective truth is incompatibility. It doesn't have to be emotional unless you let it.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    Escalation is not bad. It is a perfectly serviceable way of making decisions and part of a manger-of-managers' job is to address escalations.
- Clewza313 6y ago
  Well, you can be a bit more diplomatic: set up the 1:1 to ask for advice getting that promotion, and as a convenient side effect your manager's lack of support will get mentioned along the way.
  - yowlingcat 6y ago
    This is the way. The messaging and positioning work to your favor here -- the skip level will be happy to see a high performer in their report chain attempting to grow, and clearly, your direct manager would only want to enable that, yes? It's only a fair and reasonable expectation.
ZephyrBlu 6y ago
I'm curious what level you're at right now. I guess mid level?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mavelikara 6y ago
> I prefer not jumping ship And your manager knows it too, it seems.
dean177 6y ago
If you aren’t sure you should stay, you should leave. If you think it’s affecting your health, it’s a no brainier.
Clewza313 6y ago
The way to deal with evasive bullshittery is nail down expectations. Tell your manager you want to get promoted and need to know what they need to see by the next cycle to get you there. If they're still evasive, well, you have your answer on whether you should stick around or jump ship.
UncleMeat 6y ago
First, I would ask your manager to list a specific sequence of projects and outcomes that would be promotable. Specific. This really helps identify whether there is a mismatch in your expectations. One thing I see at Google is people thinking that they can get promoted just by doing more work that is high quality. When actually each promotion comes from doing qualitatively different kinds of work. Smashing OKRs doesn't matter one bit. This can be frustrating for people who don't communicate specifically about the process requirements with their manager since they look at their work and see it as better than their work N years ago and say "wtf why no promotion".
- nine_zeros 6y ago
  Good points. And I actually did bring up discussion on "specifics". For two quarters, I was given specifics of the kind: "improve delivery" and "better something" etc. And I did them diligently. I'm learning more and more that the "specifics" are really hand holding the manager into committing and holding them accountable. Which is SO CHILDISH. No wonder highly paid tech workers jump ship all the time.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    I'd try one more time and also escalate to his or her manager. Your manager's job is to provide you with this information in an actionable and predictable fashion, especially at lower levels. Make it clear that you want to get promoted on some timeline and ask for a specific plan ("improve delivery" isn't specific). If that doesn't resolve it, I think trying to change teams (or even companies) is reasonable. I don't know how easy that is at your company but where I am at "my manager is unable to support my career goals effectively" is an absolutely reasonable and respected reason to switch teams. Your manager is not doing a great job here. That's a fine thing to recognize. But I don't see why working with somebody to have them commit to something and hold them accountable is childish? That sounds like perfectly rational and healthy work interactions. Most of my human-to-human interaction at work is spent setting expectations, getting commitments (or committing to something) and following up on those commitments.
    - 6y ago
humanrebar 6y ago
Depending on your organization, you could switch to another team with more of a need for leadership or otherwise seems more likely to advocate for the promotion you're looking for. For some organizations, that's a big change, but other companies give a lot of autonomy to high performing individual contributors when it comes to picking what work (and therefore what team) they participate in.
mprovost 6y ago
Ok so everyone is happy with your performance except your manager. Unfortunately they're the gateway between you and promotion at most companies. So whatever you're doing that you consider to be successful doesn't match their expectations. That's what you need to fix. Have they been sending signals that they want you to do x, but you think that y is more impactful? The fact that they seem evasive could just be down to the fact that it's hard for most people to give direct feedback. The fact that you're killing it on "crud APIs" and they aren't impressed could be their way of giving feedback. If they aren't happy with that, ask them what else you should be spending your time on instead. If they aren't seeing you as taking a lead role because there are already seniors on a project, find a project without a senior and take ownership. People are always sending signals, they just might not be clear. The fact that you're so quick to dismiss them as bullshit here tells me that you're not picking up on them. In any case it's worth initiating a conversation with them and asking directly what you can do to meet their expectations. And then follow up on that. I've seen so many cases where an IC thinks they're crushing it in ways that just don't matter to their manager and then wonder why they aren't being recognised.
- nine_zeros 6y ago
  Are you trying to tell me that I should ignore 9 months of discussing this, writing down "specifics" and them assigning me to work that clearly wouldn't lead me to a promotion as per themselves?
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    If you’re not happy, change jobs. Their job is to advance company goals, hopefully that’s aligned with their best engineers growing as well, but someone has to CRUD their CRUD APIs and that someone was you on this project. It’s fair to ask what the promotion path/chances are (as you’re doing) and if those answers are not compatible with what you want, you change jobs. Their main job is not to give you work that will lead to your next promotion.
    - nine_zeros 6y ago
      Cool. In that case, they can come and say that instead of waiting yeah? Why are they "working on it" for 9 months and wasting everyone's time? It's one thing to be direct and say that it's not possible for [insert reason]. It's another to be misleading.

nullsense 6y ago

You're playing his game and he's winning.

Aeolun 6y ago

Set up a 1-on-1 with the director to discuss your managers behavior? Not something to be done lightly, if you are already planning to jump ship it can hardly hurt.

runawaybottle 6y ago
Don’t do this. You will just expose the wound and ruin whatever relationship you have with various parts of the company (going above chain of command). Find another job.
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  Well, what I think you're getting at is this kind of a tactic is inherently escalatory. But the truth is, if you want to get what you want, you need to be willing to play hardball and apply leverage. Of course, the most important part of that is BATNA, which coincides with what you said -- find another job. Where I disagree with you is that it will ruin whatever relationship you have with various parts of the company. Going "above the chain of command" is actually pretty normal and institutionalized process at functional companies -- it's called the skip-level meeting, and it's a deliberate check/feedback mechanism on line managers over-extending on managing upwards rather than downwards. I'd actually argue the opposite point, which is that organizations that fail to properly implement skip-level meetings are missing out on an important mechanism which ensures the chain of command is performant and rooting out structural rot. As a spot check, my observations on every org I've worked at basically vindicate this.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    So let’s reframe this. If you and your girl/guy have a relationship problem, and he/she goes to another man/woman to counsel, quite frankly, I’d never look at them the same again. Life is not perfect because humans are involved. People will take it some way. Anyway, for what it’s worth, I bypassed chain of command and it went exactly as you’d expect. If you are my girl, don’t cry on another man’s shoulder. These are stories of old. I don’t know, if this was a Stackoverflow question, which would be the best answer? Given how complicated life is, I’d wager my answer with a 50% probability, along with yours, is as close as we’ll get to a ‘best answer’, assuming we follow the spirit of the developer community.
    - yowlingcat 6y ago
      I think you're proving my point unintentionally. If you're at the point where the relationship isn't working out, it's actually in everyone's best interest for you to break up and date other people. If you were happy, you wouldn't be looking. You became unhappy because you were unfulfilled in the relationship, because what you were looking for was something the other person could not provide, or vice versa. What is the virtuous thing to do? Is it to silently stew and settle, or is it to ask for what you want, and if you don't get it and think you can find it elsewhere, leave to do so? The answer is obvious. All the other stuff you mention about "never look[ing] at them the same again" is more related to your ego, sense of insecurity and lack of self awareness more than anything. Once you pare those away, the objective truth is incompatibility. It doesn't have to be emotional unless you let it.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  Escalation is not bad. It is a perfectly serviceable way of making decisions and part of a manger-of-managers' job is to address escalations.
Clewza313 6y ago
Well, you can be a bit more diplomatic: set up the 1:1 to ask for advice getting that promotion, and as a convenient side effect your manager's lack of support will get mentioned along the way.
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  This is the way. The messaging and positioning work to your favor here -- the skip level will be happy to see a high performer in their report chain attempting to grow, and clearly, your direct manager would only want to enable that, yes? It's only a fair and reasonable expectation.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago

I'm curious what level you're at right now. I guess mid level?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mavelikara 6y ago

> I prefer not jumping ship And your manager knows it too, it seems.

dean177 6y ago

If you aren’t sure you should stay, you should leave. If you think it’s affecting your health, it’s a no brainier.

Clewza313 6y ago

The way to deal with evasive bullshittery is nail down expectations. Tell your manager you want to get promoted and need to know what they need to see by the next cycle to get you there. If they're still evasive, well, you have your answer on whether you should stick around or jump ship.

UncleMeat 6y ago

First, I would ask your manager to list a specific sequence of projects and outcomes that would be promotable. Specific. This really helps identify whether there is a mismatch in your expectations. One thing I see at Google is people thinking that they can get promoted just by doing more work that is high quality. When actually each promotion comes from doing qualitatively different kinds of work. Smashing OKRs doesn't matter one bit. This can be frustrating for people who don't communicate specifically about the process requirements with their manager since they look at their work and see it as better than their work N years ago and say "wtf why no promotion".

nine_zeros 6y ago
Good points. And I actually did bring up discussion on "specifics". For two quarters, I was given specifics of the kind: "improve delivery" and "better something" etc. And I did them diligently. I'm learning more and more that the "specifics" are really hand holding the manager into committing and holding them accountable. Which is SO CHILDISH. No wonder highly paid tech workers jump ship all the time.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  I'd try one more time and also escalate to his or her manager. Your manager's job is to provide you with this information in an actionable and predictable fashion, especially at lower levels. Make it clear that you want to get promoted on some timeline and ask for a specific plan ("improve delivery" isn't specific). If that doesn't resolve it, I think trying to change teams (or even companies) is reasonable. I don't know how easy that is at your company but where I am at "my manager is unable to support my career goals effectively" is an absolutely reasonable and respected reason to switch teams. Your manager is not doing a great job here. That's a fine thing to recognize. But I don't see why working with somebody to have them commit to something and hold them accountable is childish? That sounds like perfectly rational and healthy work interactions. Most of my human-to-human interaction at work is spent setting expectations, getting commitments (or committing to something) and following up on those commitments.
  - 6y ago

humanrebar 6y ago

Depending on your organization, you could switch to another team with more of a need for leadership or otherwise seems more likely to advocate for the promotion you're looking for. For some organizations, that's a big change, but other companies give a lot of autonomy to high performing individual contributors when it comes to picking what work (and therefore what team) they participate in.

mprovost 6y ago

Ok so everyone is happy with your performance except your manager. Unfortunately they're the gateway between you and promotion at most companies. So whatever you're doing that you consider to be successful doesn't match their expectations. That's what you need to fix. Have they been sending signals that they want you to do x, but you think that y is more impactful? The fact that they seem evasive could just be down to the fact that it's hard for most people to give direct feedback. The fact that you're killing it on "crud APIs" and they aren't impressed could be their way of giving feedback. If they aren't happy with that, ask them what else you should be spending your time on instead. If they aren't seeing you as taking a lead role because there are already seniors on a project, find a project without a senior and take ownership. People are always sending signals, they just might not be clear. The fact that you're so quick to dismiss them as bullshit here tells me that you're not picking up on them. In any case it's worth initiating a conversation with them and asking directly what you can do to meet their expectations. And then follow up on that. I've seen so many cases where an IC thinks they're crushing it in ways that just don't matter to their manager and then wonder why they aren't being recognised.

nine_zeros 6y ago
Are you trying to tell me that I should ignore 9 months of discussing this, writing down "specifics" and them assigning me to work that clearly wouldn't lead me to a promotion as per themselves?
- sokoloff 6y ago
  If you’re not happy, change jobs. Their job is to advance company goals, hopefully that’s aligned with their best engineers growing as well, but someone has to CRUD their CRUD APIs and that someone was you on this project. It’s fair to ask what the promotion path/chances are (as you’re doing) and if those answers are not compatible with what you want, you change jobs. Their main job is not to give you work that will lead to your next promotion.
  - nine_zeros 6y ago
    Cool. In that case, they can come and say that instead of waiting yeah? Why are they "working on it" for 9 months and wasting everyone's time? It's one thing to be direct and say that it's not possible for [insert reason]. It's another to be misleading.