3 ms·

in 25 years i've only been promoted once and that was in 1999.

DANmode 3y ago
What steps do you feel you did or did not take to achieve promotion, or signal to your manager that this was something you were even interested in? For most engineers, "promotion" means "convert yourself into a manager somehow", and I know many engineers who just aren't interested - to the point it wouldn't surprise me if this is assumed in many orgs.
hiyer 3y ago
Did you directly get promoted to CEO ;-) ?
realusername 3y ago
I don't think I ever got one and I've yet to witness a fair promotion process, I'm not even sure those even exist. Most of the time it's the "friends club" which gets promoted, either founders old friends or close colleagues recruited after. That makes sense I guess in terms of social relationships but I would rather prefer that they cut the BS and say it openly instead of pretending they have a promotion process. That feels even more insulting having a review on the supposed past performance and knowing it's just theater anyways. My advice here is that if you want to get promoted, just switch companies.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  I would re-word this: "My advice here is that if you want more pay, just switch companies". Usually (maybe not as much in the current job environment), you can just change jobs, doing a similar job with a similar title, and get significantly more money, just because the old company only gave you meager cost-of-living raises, and the new company wants to fill a position and will give you the current market rate which is now greater than the old company was paying you. But I wouldn't call this a "promotion". Going from non-manager to manager is a promotion, and going from "junior engineer" to "senior engineer" is one too, but most job changes don't involve such changes in title. And even the junior/senior stuff these days is mostly fluff; you'll just get called "senior" upon being hired in a new place just because you have X years of experience, not because you actually earned that title through some promotion process.
  - realusername 3y ago
    I totally agree, and I would also add that some companies are like those North Korean officials with a ridiculous number of medals, everybody is "head of something" and decorated with as many titles as possible. All of that is meaningless.
MattPalmer1086 3y ago
Haha, yes I can relate, I've had two in 30 years. Just got the last one last year, while mostly remote. To be fair, I never pay any attention to getting promoted. Most of my career growth has been through changing jobs and contracting. If I really want to do something else, I just look around. The chance that a suitable position exists in the company I'm in and I want to do it is fairly low.

What steps do you feel you did or did not take to achieve promotion, or signal to your manager that this was something you were even interested in? For most engineers, "promotion" means "convert yourself into a manager somehow", and I know many engineers who just aren't interested - to the point it wouldn't surprise me if this is assumed in many orgs.

hiyer 3y ago

Did you directly get promoted to CEO ;-) ?

realusername 3y ago

I don't think I ever got one and I've yet to witness a fair promotion process, I'm not even sure those even exist. Most of the time it's the "friends club" which gets promoted, either founders old friends or close colleagues recruited after. That makes sense I guess in terms of social relationships but I would rather prefer that they cut the BS and say it openly instead of pretending they have a promotion process. That feels even more insulting having a review on the supposed past performance and knowing it's just theater anyways. My advice here is that if you want to get promoted, just switch companies.

shiroiuma 3y ago
I would re-word this: "My advice here is that if you want more pay, just switch companies". Usually (maybe not as much in the current job environment), you can just change jobs, doing a similar job with a similar title, and get significantly more money, just because the old company only gave you meager cost-of-living raises, and the new company wants to fill a position and will give you the current market rate which is now greater than the old company was paying you. But I wouldn't call this a "promotion". Going from non-manager to manager is a promotion, and going from "junior engineer" to "senior engineer" is one too, but most job changes don't involve such changes in title. And even the junior/senior stuff these days is mostly fluff; you'll just get called "senior" upon being hired in a new place just because you have X years of experience, not because you actually earned that title through some promotion process.
- realusername 3y ago
  I totally agree, and I would also add that some companies are like those North Korean officials with a ridiculous number of medals, everybody is "head of something" and decorated with as many titles as possible. All of that is meaningless.

MattPalmer1086 3y ago

Haha, yes I can relate, I've had two in 30 years. Just got the last one last year, while mostly remote. To be fair, I never pay any attention to getting promoted. Most of my career growth has been through changing jobs and contracting. If I really want to do something else, I just look around. The chance that a suitable position exists in the company I'm in and I want to do it is fairly low.