How to Get Promoted Faster?

Actionable Tips for Success

Jun 10, 2024

Is this Article for you?
Are you tired of asking for a promotion?
Are you confused about why you are not getting promoted?
Are you frustrated with getting rejected for your promotion?
Are you an entry-level employee with big dreams of moving forward?
If any of the above is true for you, this article is for you.

Prelude

Today, I am going to share some important lessons from my decade-long journey, which includes working at four companies, under four managers, and receiving four promotions. This article will provide you with insights and process information to elevate your game plan.

Whether it's a team lunch, a 1:1 meeting with your manager, a company all-hands, talking with colleagues, or hanging out with your buddies, one common discussion is the company’s performance evaluation policy, career development levels, and opportunities. All these things have one hidden agenda: promotion.

Promotion is not only about career growth but also involves personal development, behavioral change, a growth mindset, maturity, accountability, skill development, and more.

If you are seeking a promotion, I will provide you with some key factors you need to start working on to expedite your chances. These factors are things I learned the hard way through the failure of getting promotions, talking with many brilliant engineering mentors, and some personal introspection.

In general, 1.5 to 2 years is a good timeline for any career level progression (promotion). However, this totally depends on the company’s level structure and expectations.

Team structure and level ratios

If you are in discussions about joining a company or a new team, you should definitely find out about the team structure and level ratio. This will increase your chances of being successful and getting promoted faster.

Must-Ask Questions to the Hiring Manager Before Joining a Team/Company

What is the team size?
How many people are working at each level?

Importance:

It gives you an idea of the existing competition at the level you are joining and future competition.
It helps you figure out your chances of getting a promotion in the first two years.
You will be able to calculate the tenure factor. “Tenure” is a hidden factor in every promotion evaluation. (Managers and companies will definitely deny this, but it’s there).

Company Core values

Whether you are planning to join a company or are already part of one, make sure you are aware of its core values. Most of the time, these values are the foundation for decision-making in the company, including promotions. The more your ideology aligns with the company’s core values through your actions and behaviors, the more you will be liked by managers and leadership.

Ensure your personal core values match or at least overlap with the company’s core values.
Ask yourself, "Are you willing to work with those values every day?"
Make all work decisions with the company’s core values in mind to strengthen your case.

Importance:

Your promotion case should include examples of how you reflect the company values.
If the core values match your personal ones, it’s easier to showcase this alignment and get promoted (going with the flow).

Performance

Now that you have a full understanding of your team and the company's core values, it’s time to focus on your performance. Here are a few aspects where managers notice your performance:

Work smartly and avoid slacking
Ask for complex and business-impactful features and drive them to completion
Maintain a task/feature completion velocity that is above average
Ensure the quality of your work is great: This includes code quality, thoughtful design considering future requirements, and making important tradeoffs.
Drive projects independently without needing too much hand-holding
Make better decisions
Learn quickly
Fearlessly take on new and uncharted territory
Be a problem solver
Keep a positive attitude

Importance:

Performance in your core job role is the most important factor for promotion.
Your job directly impacting business growth gets noticed by leadership and managers.
If a manager can blindly rely on you, it means you have essentially received soft approval for your promotion.
Managers appreciate a fearless, “can-do” attitude and will support your growth.
Any new and important opportunities will come to you.
Problem-solving is the most important skill companies seek to develop in their employees.
If you don’t hear any complaints, it means the quality of your work is silently doing its job.

SME (Subject Matter Expert)

One cannot be an expert in everything in the full-stack world with complex architectures and high-scale products. For a manager, it is important that all team members are SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) in some areas of the product they own. Becoming an SME can definitely contribute to your promotion case.

Identify an area that is important but ignored/not well understood/not interesting to many people on the team.
Dig deeper, take more interest, and become the go-to person for that particular area.
Make yourself so knowledgeable that people come to you for anything related to that area.
Drive improvements in those areas.

Importance:

This will increase your credibility in a particular area.
Your manager/leadership will notice your contributions and understand your value.
You will be hard to replace without an extensive knowledge transfer (KT).

Proactive ecosystem and process improvements

Once you understand the product in depth and are actively contributing to different features and designs, you are meeting expectations. But to get a promotion, you need to exceed expectations. It's time to be proactive.

Gather Information

List out the things that are tech debt, not properly designed, or poorly coded.
Observe the processes your team and organization follow to accomplish the SDLC ecosystem and identify the limitations and obstacles echoed by different people.
Gather pain points from different team members and cross-team folks.

Take Action

Start making the team and manager aware of the consequences of tech debts and design flaws, and create action items to track and address them.
Initiate soft discussions around the limitations and obstacles in the ecosystem and provide alternative solutions for improvements.

Importance:

Managers appreciate proactiveness.
You are going beyond your scope and trying to improve things for the team and organization, which will definitely get noticed by your manager.
A healthy ecosystem and healthy processes mean a happy team and less stress.
This shows you have skin in the game and will be rated accordingly.

Understand the manager and their expectation

Now that we have covered a lot of technical aspects, let's move on to the people aspect.

On the People Side:

The most important person who can grow your career is your manager. This person has all the power and ability to make you a HERO. Not every manager is ideal, but you should start working with your manager as a partner.

Set up a 1:1 meeting with your manager every week.
Start talking about your wish to go to the next level.
Ask about the detailed process and timeline for the promotion cycle.
Gather requirements for promotion from your manager (you can also find this on the company career development page).
Evaluate yourself against the next level requirements with your manager.
Get your manager’s feedback, identify improvement areas, and create an actionable plan for your promotion.
In every 1:1, you and your manager can check your progress and go from there.
Gather frequent feedback from your manager to improve.

Pro Tip: In addition, try asking your manager, “How can I make your life easier?” This will give you a clear picture of their pain points, which you might be able to solve.

Importance:

You are saving yourself from surprise when you don’t get promotion
Your manager is actively aware of your career growth expectations.
You will improve based on the company and manager’s expectations and not waste time doing things that do not add value to your promotion.
You will see red flags for your promotion if you don’t see progress.
From your manager’s perspective, you will understand how your organization is doing, what the challenges are, and with that big picture, you will be able to gauge your chances of being successful.

Visibility

"Never Work in Silo"

Once your manager is convinced, you need to work on convincing your skip-level managers, cross-team members, and other managers to achieve enough visibility for your promotion to go through.

Set up monthly/quarterly 1:1 meetings with your skip-level manager and tell them your aspirations at a high level, highlighting key data points.
Start talking with other teams' managers to learn more about their teams and the overlapping areas between your team and theirs. Also, offer help to their team if they want to understand some aspects of your product.
Make sure to also talk with principal engineers and architects who work with multiple teams to gain a high-level understanding.

Importance:

This will give you enough visibility among leaders, managers, and lead engineers.
When your promotion case is presented, they will already know who you are and what your worth is.
It increases your networking with important people.

Helping and mentoring

One of the most important requirements for promotion in most companies is helping and mentoring your peers, especially when you are at a senior level or above.

Try to have frequent 1:1 or group gatherings with your teammates.
Ask them about any pain points, challenges and improvements they are seeking.
Help your teammates.
Mentor your teammates if you see a need in some technical or other aspects.

Importance:

This will grow your credibility among your peers.
It will increase transparency.
You'll have a good chance of receiving legitimate and positive promotion feedback from your peers.
You can help in bubbling your peer’s feedback to proper forum if they are not comfortable to do by themselves. That will give you more visibility of presenting grassroot level issues.
People often talk with their manager in their 1:1s, so if they mention you positively, your manager will be more confident in your promotion.

In summary, getting promoted isn't super complicated. It's about taking specific actions that really matter and speeding up your path to promotion with a bigger impact.