6 ms·

Get your work recognized: write a brag document (2019)

81 points by momentmaker 3y ago

avikalp 3y ago
This looks great. We have a ritual in our company (Vibinex) where we get everyone to fill a self-evaluation form every 6 months with 4 questions: 1. What did you achieve in last 6 months? 2. What did you plan but were not able to achieve (and why)? 3. What do you plan to accomplish in the next 6 months. 4. Any thing else you want us to know. This is very similar to the brag document you mentioned in terms of utility (and it is part of our performance review process).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tonydev 3y ago
This is (unfortunately) great advice for large companies like Google, MSFT, Meta, where the internal mechanics of vying for and achieving promotion tend to drive behavior. Promo packets, calibration sessions, etc. OTOH, this is not good advice for any organization that maintains the capacity to (1) recognize and (2) value great work on merit. Better to spend your mental energy on doing something you and your colleagues deeply value, towards some shared goal.
- avikalp 3y ago
  So untrue. Creation of this kind of a brag document comes under the "retrospective" process - which is one of the core requirements of any culture that maintains capacity to recognise and value great work. If you think you are able to do that in your company without a prioritised retrospective process, I would be very curious to know how that happens. (From my experience of working in 10+ organisations, people who think so usually are lying to themselves that they are recognising and valuing great work. They are (without exception, in my experience) running a very political organisation. But I would love to be proved wrong.)
- ttymck 3y ago
  How do I find these organizations?
- dandigangi 3y ago
  False. This is great for any job. Not saying it will always be successful but its a red flag if you do this and it has no impact on your compensation or promos. Giant red flag.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Scubabear68 3y ago
    This really depends on the organization and the manager. I have been in orgs where my manager knows very well what I am doing and my impact. A list like this would be fairly useless in that case. I have worked for bigger corps where my manager has no idea what I do, especially consulting service companies. If I’ve worked with 7 clients over 3 different account groups, I am the only one who knows what those 7 clients are, and what I did for them. In those cases I do document my accomplishments. I have even gone as far as create a brief presentation for when I get a new manager. This also differs from a CV not only in being more detailed, but also flagging things like “successfully worked with XYZ account manager, who is widely known to be difficult to work with”.
    - dandigangi 3y ago
      As they should. But... you are the driver of your career, not your manager. It's a HUGE risk to rely on your manager only to do it. We get busy and even if were doing that we have a ton of other things were balancing. The risk is that things are missed. Your manager is a support person to your career development.
    - wenc 3y ago
      Managers, especially if they have a large span of control (but even if they don't), aren't all uniformly disciplined at recording every instance of impact. To help your manager and reduce variability (i.e. their perception of your performance should be based on data, not vibes), it's to your advantage to keep your own list. I've had good managers that I keep in the loop with weekly 1:1's but come promo time, even they need help figuring out what I did over the span of a year. (to be honest, if I hadn't written it down, I don't even remember myself)
- bradknowles 3y ago
  Not just one document for "achievements". Have a separate section for the big "bar raiser" moments. If you don't keep this document constantly updated on a daily basis, you will quickly forget what you did and when, and then you won't have a document for any of your achievements. You need to show this document to your manager and discuss each item on the list during your weekly 1-on-1 meetings. Failure to do so is pretty much guaranteed to keep you from being promoted. Failure to be promoted is pretty much guaranteed to get you pushed out the door. The U.S. Military has a concept of "too much time in grade", a.k.a., "up or out". The big companies have a similar process -- if you're not moving up the ladder fast enough in comparison to all the other people at your level, then you need to leave. My biggest problem is recognizing when I've done anything worthy of writing down as an achievement.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  This is arguably good advice in most circumstances, even in private projects. Like it or not, self-promotion gets you noticed. Getting noticed grants you opportunities. Opportunities let you show off what you can do. Rinse and repeat. Doesn't need to be embellished.
ttymck 3y ago
Has anyone had success with this approach at startups?
- StevePerkins 3y ago
  If people don't already know what you're doing at a startup, then you have REALLY chosen the wrong startup! I have no doubt that the LinkedIn addicts and self-help book cultists will swoop down to insist that this advice applies to all companies. But really, it is most heavily tilted toward tech giants and large enterprises.
- mhss 3y ago
  In my experience this is more important at large companies, because your work is more likely to get lost in the noise. At startups work is often much more visible and perhaps there's less of a need for this, but not a bad idea to do it either way and you can KISS, ask for a quarterly check-in with your manager to go over your work accomplishments, ask for feedback, etc;
jdudkeidnn 3y ago
While I agree with and appreciate the pragmatism of this, I think there’s a fundamental problem if an employee has to report their work to their manager (or employer, etc). Management that is not deeply aware of what their reports are doing is either unnecessary or incompetent. I think this trend is mostly a result of management looking to squeeze more labor out of their reports for the same price. As soon as you make working on braggable things your reports problem, you have a lot less work to do and your reports have (more) perverse incentives to both overwork and ignore “unbraggable” work. These incentives are more aligned with contract work, not full time employment - the former usually being much pricier.
- ttymck 3y ago
  I strongly agree with this intuition, and I worry that we software engineers are gaslighting each other into believing otherwise.
- its-summertime 3y ago
  I go to a mechanic, ask them to give my car a look at. They do so, and then give me a report of the work to be done.
  - jdudkeidnn 3y ago
    I’m not quite following…this would be equivalent to a manager asking a dev what work needs to be done (I think). Which is good and healthy - and requires the manager to understand the report (as well as have a record of it, so no need for a brag doc). If they’re unable to understand it, they’re not suited to evaluate that report. Nearly every time I’ve needed work done on a car different mechanics give me different lists. It’s pretty expensive when I’m unable to evaluate those reports because I don’t understand cars.
  - xboxnolifes 3y ago
    Managers aren't "going to a mechanic". They are managing the entire shop. If they are managing the shop and don't know what the mechanics are doing, then they aren't doing much managing.
zallarak 3y ago
Ironically I think these types of exercises are part of the problem at major software companies; terrible efficiency and over hiring. Because you need to “brag” to get rewarded, everyone ambitious has a list. And each list is nearly impossible for middle managers to evaluate. Someone may solve a hardcore engineering problem that has no business impact. Another person might redo some docs. Someone may create a design system version. Lots of token achievements, but not real work. Real work should stand on its own and competent managers should be able to identify it. Mediocre managers rely on lists, so then people start showing up to work and making lists.
- bananapub 3y ago
  > everyone ambitious has a list. And each list is nearly impossible for middle managers to evaluate. have you worked at one of the megacorps you're talking about? everyone has a list, because their manager gets them to write one, and it's very possible for managers to evaluate them because that is their job and they are largely reviewing their direct reports while getting bollocked by their peer managers.
- mhss 3y ago
  > Ironically I think these types of exercises are part of the problem at major software companies; terrible efficiency and over hiring. They're not the problem they're a consequence of the problems. > Because you need to “brag” to get rewarded, everyone ambitious has a list. And each list is nearly impossible for middle managers to evaluate. This will be read mostly by your manager not a middle manager. It's up to your manager then to represent your accomplishments to middle managers and above. Good thorough middle managers will still be able to assess them though. > Another person might redo some docs. Someone may create a design system version. Lots of token achievements, but not real work. Competent managers can distinguish between those, if you don't have competent managers that's the problem, not the "brag doc". > Real work should stand on its own and competent managers should be able to identify it. Mediocre managers rely on lists, so then people start showing up to work and making lists. No because even competent managers have often a wide span at large companies and cannot be involved in the day to day details for all the work their team does and things can fall through the cracks. This would only be solvable by having first line managers have less reports or less manager overhead so they can be immersed in their team's work. I have done both, but at large companies is often not possible to be immersed in the work of all of your reports, no matter how competent you are. As mentioned in the article, even you often forget what you have done last week.
icholy 3y ago
At my company we have a shared "wins" document where team members add entries for things they're proud of. It's annoying to maintain, but it's definitely been helpful when asking for a raise.
User23 3y ago
I don't keep a brag document, but I do keep a daily journal of what I've done. It certainly makes 1:1s considerably less stressful. And it does make it easier to pad out a promo packet too.
- ttymck 3y ago
  Are your 1:1s primarily a way for you to share what you did last week?
  - User23 3y ago
    It depends is usually a kind of lame answer, but... it depends. Yes, generally speaking since I tend to work with a fairly low level of supervision, my manager wants to know what I've been up to. And what I'd like to do, and what the rough spots were, and where I might be able to benefit from help. All good things to have journaled! We also look at the bigger picture like setting me up for success at the next review and promotion. Are your 1:1s primarily something else?
euroderf 3y ago
Marketers shall inherit the Earth. Including self-marketers.
flir 3y ago
That's a CV.
striking 3y ago
Love this article so much. The only thing I'd add is that Slack is a really nice way to collect braggable items. Just forward brags to a private channel. Invite your manager if you want.
justinlloyd 3y ago
9,999 people out of 10,000 telling you "don't do this, if your manager doesn't know what you did 10 months ago, the manager isn't doing their job" would have difficulty telling me what they had for breakfast last Tuesday. Keep a log of your work. In fact, keep a log of everything you do. It gives you a sense of accomplishment, it gives you an idea of where your year went, and it lets you refer back to key highlights during your negotiations for a raise or promotion. You think your memory is bad? There is not an organization out there that will ever recognize anything you ever did beyond the last sprint planning session or Jira ticket you closed. I've yet to work for a manager, ever, that hasn't required a hard push to hit a deadline for months on end, only to then forget that effort and opine that you took off early on Friday. They'll remember the extended lunch you took yesterday, they'll forget you worked 19 days straight without a day off, whether it is a large tech organization or a small start-up of six people. I am sure many of you will no doubt attempt to regale me with tales of awesome managers who made sure to give you "atta boy" pats and remembered that thing you did when it came to year-end review, but those stellar managers are few and far between, and most of us will never get to encounter such a rare shiny creature. So don't be like all those times in college when you thought to yourself "I don't need to write this down, I'll remember it", because you won't.
- jdudkeidnn 3y ago
  > Keep a log of your work. In fact, keep a log of everything you do This is exactly how contract work is done. If you’re doing this as a full time employee you’re underpaid (assuming it’s for your employer - doing it for yourself is a great idea!)
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    I had an employee that did this (I was his manager), and I was quite grateful. He wasn't our most productive or "rockstar" engineer, but he was highly organized, and I appreciated it.
    - chiph 3y ago
      I ran a query against Azure Devops to produce a list of workitems that I had worked on for the year and gave it to my manager. It took maybe five minutes to dump it into Excel and format it to look good. I got a raise because I did this - I had hard numbers showing how productive I was for the year, and other devs didn't so he had to guesstimate their contributions.
dang 3y ago
Related: Get your work recognized: write a brag document (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32236407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32236407 - July 2022 (1 comment) Get your work recognized: write a brag document (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28612015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28612015 - Sept 2021 (3 comments) Get your work recognized: write a brag document - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25727976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25727976 - Jan 2021 (1 comment) Get your work recognized: write a brag document - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20665225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20665225 - Aug 2019 (78 comments)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bad_username 3y ago
I started doing this a few years ago and my career dynamics markedly improved. To reduce the brag factor, I present it as voluntary status updates, and also I include lessons learnt to make it more sincere.
randall 3y ago
This is why I left meta. Literally. Performance reviews give me crippling anxiety.

81 points by momentmaker 3y ago

This looks great. We have a ritual in our company (Vibinex) where we get everyone to fill a self-evaluation form every 6 months with 4 questions: 1. What did you achieve in last 6 months? 2. What did you plan but were not able to achieve (and why)? 3. What do you plan to accomplish in the next 6 months. 4. Any thing else you want us to know. This is very similar to the brag document you mentioned in terms of utility (and it is part of our performance review process).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

tonydev 3y ago

This is (unfortunately) great advice for large companies like Google, MSFT, Meta, where the internal mechanics of vying for and achieving promotion tend to drive behavior. Promo packets, calibration sessions, etc. OTOH, this is not good advice for any organization that maintains the capacity to (1) recognize and (2) value great work on merit. Better to spend your mental energy on doing something you and your colleagues deeply value, towards some shared goal.

avikalp 3y ago
So untrue. Creation of this kind of a brag document comes under the "retrospective" process - which is one of the core requirements of any culture that maintains capacity to recognise and value great work. If you think you are able to do that in your company without a prioritised retrospective process, I would be very curious to know how that happens. (From my experience of working in 10+ organisations, people who think so usually are lying to themselves that they are recognising and valuing great work. They are (without exception, in my experience) running a very political organisation. But I would love to be proved wrong.)
ttymck 3y ago
How do I find these organizations?
dandigangi 3y ago
False. This is great for any job. Not saying it will always be successful but its a red flag if you do this and it has no impact on your compensation or promos. Giant red flag.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Scubabear68 3y ago
  This really depends on the organization and the manager. I have been in orgs where my manager knows very well what I am doing and my impact. A list like this would be fairly useless in that case. I have worked for bigger corps where my manager has no idea what I do, especially consulting service companies. If I’ve worked with 7 clients over 3 different account groups, I am the only one who knows what those 7 clients are, and what I did for them. In those cases I do document my accomplishments. I have even gone as far as create a brief presentation for when I get a new manager. This also differs from a CV not only in being more detailed, but also flagging things like “successfully worked with XYZ account manager, who is widely known to be difficult to work with”.
  - dandigangi 3y ago
    As they should. But... you are the driver of your career, not your manager. It's a HUGE risk to rely on your manager only to do it. We get busy and even if were doing that we have a ton of other things were balancing. The risk is that things are missed. Your manager is a support person to your career development.
  - wenc 3y ago
    Managers, especially if they have a large span of control (but even if they don't), aren't all uniformly disciplined at recording every instance of impact. To help your manager and reduce variability (i.e. their perception of your performance should be based on data, not vibes), it's to your advantage to keep your own list. I've had good managers that I keep in the loop with weekly 1:1's but come promo time, even they need help figuring out what I did over the span of a year. (to be honest, if I hadn't written it down, I don't even remember myself)
bradknowles 3y ago
Not just one document for "achievements". Have a separate section for the big "bar raiser" moments. If you don't keep this document constantly updated on a daily basis, you will quickly forget what you did and when, and then you won't have a document for any of your achievements. You need to show this document to your manager and discuss each item on the list during your weekly 1-on-1 meetings. Failure to do so is pretty much guaranteed to keep you from being promoted. Failure to be promoted is pretty much guaranteed to get you pushed out the door. The U.S. Military has a concept of "too much time in grade", a.k.a., "up or out". The big companies have a similar process -- if you're not moving up the ladder fast enough in comparison to all the other people at your level, then you need to leave. My biggest problem is recognizing when I've done anything worthy of writing down as an achievement.
marginalia_nu 3y ago
This is arguably good advice in most circumstances, even in private projects. Like it or not, self-promotion gets you noticed. Getting noticed grants you opportunities. Opportunities let you show off what you can do. Rinse and repeat. Doesn't need to be embellished.

ttymck 3y ago

Has anyone had success with this approach at startups?

StevePerkins 3y ago
If people don't already know what you're doing at a startup, then you have REALLY chosen the wrong startup! I have no doubt that the LinkedIn addicts and self-help book cultists will swoop down to insist that this advice applies to all companies. But really, it is most heavily tilted toward tech giants and large enterprises.
mhss 3y ago
In my experience this is more important at large companies, because your work is more likely to get lost in the noise. At startups work is often much more visible and perhaps there's less of a need for this, but not a bad idea to do it either way and you can KISS, ask for a quarterly check-in with your manager to go over your work accomplishments, ask for feedback, etc;

jdudkeidnn 3y ago

While I agree with and appreciate the pragmatism of this, I think there’s a fundamental problem if an employee has to report their work to their manager (or employer, etc). Management that is not deeply aware of what their reports are doing is either unnecessary or incompetent. I think this trend is mostly a result of management looking to squeeze more labor out of their reports for the same price. As soon as you make working on braggable things your reports problem, you have a lot less work to do and your reports have (more) perverse incentives to both overwork and ignore “unbraggable” work. These incentives are more aligned with contract work, not full time employment - the former usually being much pricier.

ttymck 3y ago
I strongly agree with this intuition, and I worry that we software engineers are gaslighting each other into believing otherwise.
its-summertime 3y ago
I go to a mechanic, ask them to give my car a look at. They do so, and then give me a report of the work to be done.
- jdudkeidnn 3y ago
  I’m not quite following…this would be equivalent to a manager asking a dev what work needs to be done (I think). Which is good and healthy - and requires the manager to understand the report (as well as have a record of it, so no need for a brag doc). If they’re unable to understand it, they’re not suited to evaluate that report. Nearly every time I’ve needed work done on a car different mechanics give me different lists. It’s pretty expensive when I’m unable to evaluate those reports because I don’t understand cars.
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
  Managers aren't "going to a mechanic". They are managing the entire shop. If they are managing the shop and don't know what the mechanics are doing, then they aren't doing much managing.

zallarak 3y ago

Ironically I think these types of exercises are part of the problem at major software companies; terrible efficiency and over hiring. Because you need to “brag” to get rewarded, everyone ambitious has a list. And each list is nearly impossible for middle managers to evaluate. Someone may solve a hardcore engineering problem that has no business impact. Another person might redo some docs. Someone may create a design system version. Lots of token achievements, but not real work. Real work should stand on its own and competent managers should be able to identify it. Mediocre managers rely on lists, so then people start showing up to work and making lists.

bananapub 3y ago
> everyone ambitious has a list. And each list is nearly impossible for middle managers to evaluate. have you worked at one of the megacorps you're talking about? everyone has a list, because their manager gets them to write one, and it's very possible for managers to evaluate them because that is their job and they are largely reviewing their direct reports while getting bollocked by their peer managers.
mhss 3y ago
> Ironically I think these types of exercises are part of the problem at major software companies; terrible efficiency and over hiring. They're not the problem they're a consequence of the problems. > Because you need to “brag” to get rewarded, everyone ambitious has a list. And each list is nearly impossible for middle managers to evaluate. This will be read mostly by your manager not a middle manager. It's up to your manager then to represent your accomplishments to middle managers and above. Good thorough middle managers will still be able to assess them though. > Another person might redo some docs. Someone may create a design system version. Lots of token achievements, but not real work. Competent managers can distinguish between those, if you don't have competent managers that's the problem, not the "brag doc". > Real work should stand on its own and competent managers should be able to identify it. Mediocre managers rely on lists, so then people start showing up to work and making lists. No because even competent managers have often a wide span at large companies and cannot be involved in the day to day details for all the work their team does and things can fall through the cracks. This would only be solvable by having first line managers have less reports or less manager overhead so they can be immersed in their team's work. I have done both, but at large companies is often not possible to be immersed in the work of all of your reports, no matter how competent you are. As mentioned in the article, even you often forget what you have done last week.

icholy 3y ago

At my company we have a shared "wins" document where team members add entries for things they're proud of. It's annoying to maintain, but it's definitely been helpful when asking for a raise.

User23 3y ago

I don't keep a brag document, but I do keep a daily journal of what I've done. It certainly makes 1:1s considerably less stressful. And it does make it easier to pad out a promo packet too.

ttymck 3y ago
Are your 1:1s primarily a way for you to share what you did last week?
- User23 3y ago
  It depends is usually a kind of lame answer, but... it depends. Yes, generally speaking since I tend to work with a fairly low level of supervision, my manager wants to know what I've been up to. And what I'd like to do, and what the rough spots were, and where I might be able to benefit from help. All good things to have journaled! We also look at the bigger picture like setting me up for success at the next review and promotion. Are your 1:1s primarily something else?

euroderf 3y ago

Marketers shall inherit the Earth. Including self-marketers.

flir 3y ago

That's a CV.

striking 3y ago

Love this article so much. The only thing I'd add is that Slack is a really nice way to collect braggable items. Just forward brags to a private channel. Invite your manager if you want.

justinlloyd 3y ago

9,999 people out of 10,000 telling you "don't do this, if your manager doesn't know what you did 10 months ago, the manager isn't doing their job" would have difficulty telling me what they had for breakfast last Tuesday. Keep a log of your work. In fact, keep a log of everything you do. It gives you a sense of accomplishment, it gives you an idea of where your year went, and it lets you refer back to key highlights during your negotiations for a raise or promotion. You think your memory is bad? There is not an organization out there that will ever recognize anything you ever did beyond the last sprint planning session or Jira ticket you closed. I've yet to work for a manager, ever, that hasn't required a hard push to hit a deadline for months on end, only to then forget that effort and opine that you took off early on Friday. They'll remember the extended lunch you took yesterday, they'll forget you worked 19 days straight without a day off, whether it is a large tech organization or a small start-up of six people. I am sure many of you will no doubt attempt to regale me with tales of awesome managers who made sure to give you "atta boy" pats and remembered that thing you did when it came to year-end review, but those stellar managers are few and far between, and most of us will never get to encounter such a rare shiny creature. So don't be like all those times in college when you thought to yourself "I don't need to write this down, I'll remember it", because you won't.

jdudkeidnn 3y ago
> Keep a log of your work. In fact, keep a log of everything you do This is exactly how contract work is done. If you’re doing this as a full time employee you’re underpaid (assuming it’s for your employer - doing it for yourself is a great idea!)
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  I had an employee that did this (I was his manager), and I was quite grateful. He wasn't our most productive or "rockstar" engineer, but he was highly organized, and I appreciated it.
  - chiph 3y ago
    I ran a query against Azure Devops to produce a list of workitems that I had worked on for the year and gave it to my manager. It took maybe five minutes to dump it into Excel and format it to look good. I got a raise because I did this - I had hard numbers showing how productive I was for the year, and other devs didn't so he had to guesstimate their contributions.

dang 3y ago

Related: Get your work recognized: write a brag document (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32236407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32236407 - July 2022 (1 comment) Get your work recognized: write a brag document (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28612015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28612015 - Sept 2021 (3 comments) Get your work recognized: write a brag document - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25727976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25727976 - Jan 2021 (1 comment) Get your work recognized: write a brag document - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20665225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20665225 - Aug 2019 (78 comments)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bad_username 3y ago

I started doing this a few years ago and my career dynamics markedly improved. To reduce the brag factor, I present it as voluntary status updates, and also I include lessons learnt to make it more sincere.

randall 3y ago

This is why I left meta. Literally. Performance reviews give me crippling anxiety.