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The general sentiment of being aware about your career and decisions is true. But this reminds me of what I hate about modern corporate “culture” the most. And

The general sentiment of being aware about your career and decisions is true. But this reminds me of what I hate about modern corporate “culture” the most. And what is broken about it the most. Im speaking about the rat race. Tge fact, that you have to waste a noticeable part of your work time, effort and energy to sell your work instead of doing it. To the point where good salesmen make a “career” and become your bosses without any correlation to their work abilities or even management skills. Those are very good at designing their careers. As a result the more corrupted the company with this style of internal management the more reliable it drowns in a swamp of ineffectiveness. In a well functioning company or society “building a career” shouldn’t be a goal nor priority. It should be the natural outcome (more or less) of a “job very well done” that is a true priority. Yes we’re not in a perfect world. But at least we should try to reach our ideals rather than promoting rat race mentality as a norm.

Aurornis 10mo ago
> To the point where good salesmen make a “career” and become your bosses without any correlation to their work abilities or even management skills. The few times I've seen this actually happen at a company, it was not the kind of company I wanted to work for long-term anyway. If the company is so broken that the wrong people are being promoted while the right people are being ignored constantly, there will be bigger problems than you simply missing a promotion. The one startup I worked for that had this problem chronically (combined with some nepotism) did a bee-line run straight for insolvency and then collapsed. Everyone on the ground floor saw it coming. Some people still tried to race for promotions and upward career trajectory there, but the smart ones invested their effort in getting out. That said, I've also worked at some companies where the right people were getting promoted but there were groups of people with sour grapes he were always upset it wasn't them. It's never something everyone agrees on.
- raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
  Every single major tech company that I am aware of (admittedly only two from 1st and 2nd hand knowledge) require you to submit a promo doc showing you “operating at the level you want to get promoted to”. You only can show that by getting those plum opportunities and that only happens through building the right relationships with the right people and knowing how to navigate corporate culture.
raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
How will someone know what you’re doing if you don’t tell them? There is an entire theory called the “luck surface area” that says you need to do the work and tell people you did the work. https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/surface-area-of-luck https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/surface-area-of-luck There is another similar school of thought that the only thing that matters in your career are “results and relationships”. It took me way too long to figure all of this out. But once I did, it made my life much easier and it made it much easier to navigate within my company and getting opportunities on the outside. During the last ten or so years as a “developer” without doing a single coding interview because I do know how to sell myself (and deliver)… 1. I’ve gotten three jobs where the new manager/director/CTO hired me as one of their first technical hires to lead major initiatives 2. Got a job at BigTech without any coding interviews even though my job required hands on keyboard coding as part of the job - cloud consulting specializing in app dev (yes full time direct hire with bonuses and RSUs) 3. Left there and had a job within a week as a staff consultant (full time) with another consulting company. I’m not smarter than anyone else, I learned how to network, talk the talk and play the game. On another note, you don’t and shouldn’t get a promotion based on doing your current job well. Just because you are a good developer doesn’t mean that you have the skills to lead other developers. That’s the entire point behind the “Peter Principle”. You have to show you are capable of working at the next level by working at the next level. I’m not saying you shouldn’t make more money if you bring more value to a company than do done else at your level. But how is a company suppose to objectively manage that? You pulled more stories off the board? You had less QA defects? For what it’s worth, I flew to close to the sun myself about a decade ago and realized I would suck as a manager of people. But I was getting better at leading projects. I chose the IC route.
- aristofun 10mo ago
  > I’m not smarter than anyone else, I learned how to network, talk the talk and play the game. Congratulations that you learned how to game the system. Fair enough. That doesn't mean you should brag about it or celebrate that terrible "school of thought". > How will someone know what you’re doing if you don’t tell them? That's a simple part: it's your manager's direct and one of the main job responsibilities. It's like 80% of what manager job is all about. To be perfectly aware of what his team is doing, what was done good, what was bad, performance, strong, weak sides etc. For every individual report. The hard part is to find the manager who at least understands that, even harder to find someone who are good at it. But in my limited experience it's not much harder than to find and spot a decent engineer.
jbs789 10mo ago
These things are not mutually exclusive. You can do a great job and learn how to communicate a job well done. If the company truly promotes incompetent salespeople then I’d steer clear of that company with the confidence that others are out there.
- aristofun 10mo ago
  > These things are not mutually exclusive. You can do a great job and learn how to communicate a job well done. Absolutely! Nothing wrong with communicating your work and networking. It's better to do that than don't, it's a good thing to do, it's a great thing to help your manager to be aware of what's going on. As long as it is not a mandatory requirement and expectation of an engineer that puts pressure and becomes a toil.
  - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
    If you are okay with just being a ticket taker who us not aiming for a promotion to a job with more scope, responsibility and pay, there is nothing wrong with that trade off. I’m at a point in my life where I am okay with the level of autonomy I have and have no interest in being a director or above and getting cost of living raises for the foreseeable future. But I’m 51 and an empty nester with me and my wife. A line level manager position would be a vertical move. A director is a “manager of managers”.
    - aristofun 10mo ago
      > If you are okay with just being a ticket taker who us not aiming for a promotion I think your extreme example does not refute any of my points and I agree with you. "good manager" is not a guarantee for a good career, it's your responsibility ultimately.

Aurornis 10mo ago

> To the point where good salesmen make a “career” and become your bosses without any correlation to their work abilities or even management skills. The few times I've seen this actually happen at a company, it was not the kind of company I wanted to work for long-term anyway. If the company is so broken that the wrong people are being promoted while the right people are being ignored constantly, there will be bigger problems than you simply missing a promotion. The one startup I worked for that had this problem chronically (combined with some nepotism) did a bee-line run straight for insolvency and then collapsed. Everyone on the ground floor saw it coming. Some people still tried to race for promotions and upward career trajectory there, but the smart ones invested their effort in getting out. That said, I've also worked at some companies where the right people were getting promoted but there were groups of people with sour grapes he were always upset it wasn't them. It's never something everyone agrees on.

raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
Every single major tech company that I am aware of (admittedly only two from 1st and 2nd hand knowledge) require you to submit a promo doc showing you “operating at the level you want to get promoted to”. You only can show that by getting those plum opportunities and that only happens through building the right relationships with the right people and knowing how to navigate corporate culture.

raw_anon_1111 10mo ago

How will someone know what you’re doing if you don’t tell them? There is an entire theory called the “luck surface area” that says you need to do the work and tell people you did the work. https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/surface-area-of-luck https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/surface-area-of-luck There is another similar school of thought that the only thing that matters in your career are “results and relationships”. It took me way too long to figure all of this out. But once I did, it made my life much easier and it made it much easier to navigate within my company and getting opportunities on the outside. During the last ten or so years as a “developer” without doing a single coding interview because I do know how to sell myself (and deliver)… 1. I’ve gotten three jobs where the new manager/director/CTO hired me as one of their first technical hires to lead major initiatives 2. Got a job at BigTech without any coding interviews even though my job required hands on keyboard coding as part of the job - cloud consulting specializing in app dev (yes full time direct hire with bonuses and RSUs) 3. Left there and had a job within a week as a staff consultant (full time) with another consulting company. I’m not smarter than anyone else, I learned how to network, talk the talk and play the game. On another note, you don’t and shouldn’t get a promotion based on doing your current job well. Just because you are a good developer doesn’t mean that you have the skills to lead other developers. That’s the entire point behind the “Peter Principle”. You have to show you are capable of working at the next level by working at the next level. I’m not saying you shouldn’t make more money if you bring more value to a company than do done else at your level. But how is a company suppose to objectively manage that? You pulled more stories off the board? You had less QA defects? For what it’s worth, I flew to close to the sun myself about a decade ago and realized I would suck as a manager of people. But I was getting better at leading projects. I chose the IC route.

aristofun 10mo ago
> I’m not smarter than anyone else, I learned how to network, talk the talk and play the game. Congratulations that you learned how to game the system. Fair enough. That doesn't mean you should brag about it or celebrate that terrible "school of thought". > How will someone know what you’re doing if you don’t tell them? That's a simple part: it's your manager's direct and one of the main job responsibilities. It's like 80% of what manager job is all about. To be perfectly aware of what his team is doing, what was done good, what was bad, performance, strong, weak sides etc. For every individual report. The hard part is to find the manager who at least understands that, even harder to find someone who are good at it. But in my limited experience it's not much harder than to find and spot a decent engineer.

jbs789 10mo ago

These things are not mutually exclusive. You can do a great job and learn how to communicate a job well done. If the company truly promotes incompetent salespeople then I’d steer clear of that company with the confidence that others are out there.

aristofun 10mo ago
> These things are not mutually exclusive. You can do a great job and learn how to communicate a job well done. Absolutely! Nothing wrong with communicating your work and networking. It's better to do that than don't, it's a good thing to do, it's a great thing to help your manager to be aware of what's going on. As long as it is not a mandatory requirement and expectation of an engineer that puts pressure and becomes a toil.
- raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
  If you are okay with just being a ticket taker who us not aiming for a promotion to a job with more scope, responsibility and pay, there is nothing wrong with that trade off. I’m at a point in my life where I am okay with the level of autonomy I have and have no interest in being a director or above and getting cost of living raises for the foreseeable future. But I’m 51 and an empty nester with me and my wife. A line level manager position would be a vertical move. A director is a “manager of managers”.
  - aristofun 10mo ago
    > If you are okay with just being a ticket taker who us not aiming for a promotion I think your extreme example does not refute any of my points and I agree with you. "good manager" is not a guarantee for a good career, it's your responsibility ultimately.