Speedrun Your Tech Promotion
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful video, Steve, an L7 Principal Engineer at Amazon, shares his personal journey and the lessons learned from multiple failed promotion attempts. He emphasizes that promotions are not merit-based but a process that can be understood and optimized. Steve advises understanding the promotion criteria, demonstrating competence at the next level, and gathering tangible evidence of one's ability to handle broader responsibilities. He also highlights the importance of concrete evidence over qualitative endorsements in the promotion process.
Takeaways
- 🎉 Promotions are not solely based on merit but are a process that can be understood and optimized.
- 🔄 Understanding the promotion process at your company is crucial for career advancement.
- 🚫 Tech promotions are anti-Peter Principle, requiring demonstration of next-level competence before promotion.
- 📈 High performance at one's current level is necessary but not sufficient for promotion.
- 📝 Gathering tangible evidence of operating at the next level is more compelling than qualitative endorsements.
- 🤔 Promotees should proactively seek to understand and adapt to changes in promotion criteria and processes.
- 👥 Networking and understanding the experiences of those who have been promoted can provide valuable insights.
- 📊 Demonstrating a broader scope of responsibilities and capabilities is key to promotion success.
- 📋 Creating a promotion packet with specific, quantifiable achievements can strengthen a promotion case.
- 🗣️ Effective feedback should highlight how an individual's contributions demonstrate readiness for the next level.
- 💡 Working backwards from desired feedback can clarify promotion goals and strategies.
Q & A
What was the speaker's initial reaction to being promoted to principal engineer at Amazon?
-The speaker did not feel as happy as they thought they should be, reflecting on their previous failures to be promoted over the past four years.
How many times had the speaker been put up for promotion before finally succeeding?
-The speaker had been put up for promotion and failed five times over the previous four years.
What was the speaker's initial career progression like at Amazon?
-The speaker started as a support engineer in 2006, moved to L4 SD1 in 2007, reached SD2 in 2009, and became a Senior SD (SD3) in 2012, indicating rapid progression initially.
What did the speaker realize after getting stuck in their career progression?
-The speaker realized that they didn't know what to do to unstick themselves once they stopped progressing, highlighting the need for understanding the promotion process.
What is the first lesson the speaker learned from their frustrating experience with promotions?
-The first lesson was that promotions are not a meritocracy but a process that can be broken down and optimized.
Why is it important to understand the promotion process at your company?
-Understanding the promotion process is crucial because it allows you to know what steps to take and how to prepare, which can prevent setbacks due to process changes.
According to the script, what is the difference between Russell and Matt in terms of work ethic?
-Russell is described as hardworking, engaging, and helpful, often working nights and weekends, while Matt has a more relaxed approach, not working extra hours and being less helpful.
Why might Matt be promoted over Russell, despite seeming less dedicated?
-Matt might be promoted over Russell if he understands the promotion process at the company and optimizes his actions accordingly, whereas Russell may not be aware of the process.
What is the 'anti-Peter Principle' as it pertains to tech promotions?
-The 'anti-Peter Principle' in tech promotions means that one must demonstrate competence at the next level before being promoted, rather than simply being competent at the current level.
What should Lance have done to improve his chances of promotion according to the speaker?
-Lance should have taken on more than what was expected of him at his current level and provided multiple data points of operating at the next level to demonstrate his readiness for promotion.
Why is it better to provide tangible evidence of operating at the next level rather than qualitative endorsements?
-Tangible evidence is more compelling and concrete, showing specific contributions and capabilities at the next level, which is more persuasive than general positive reviews.
How can one ensure they receive effective feedback for a promotion?
-One can write down the type of feedback they want to elicit, operate in a way that leads to that feedback, and remind colleagues of what they witnessed when promotion time comes.
What is the 'promotion algorithm' the speaker mentions for a structured approach to promotion?
-The 'promotion algorithm' is a structured approach to promotion that the speaker developed, which is explained in more detail during the 'speedrun to promotion' launch event.
Outlines
🎉 Promotion and the Struggle Behind Success
The speaker reflects on their promotion to principal engineer at Amazon in Q1 of 2020, despite feeling they should be happier, they recognize the struggle behind their success. They recount their rapid progression from a support engineer in 2006 to senior SD in 2012, but then face a series of failed promotion attempts over the next four years. The speaker emphasizes that promotions are not a meritocracy but a process that can be understood and optimized. They highlight the importance of knowing the promotion criteria and process, as well as the impact of changes in those processes on their own journey. This paragraph sets the stage for the lessons to be shared in the video.
🔍 The Illusion of Meritocracy in Promotions
This paragraph delves into the misconception that promotions are solely based on merit. The speaker uses hypothetical examples of two employees, Russell and Matt, to illustrate that working hard is not the only factor in getting promoted. Russell works tirelessly, contributing significantly to the team, while Matt has a more relaxed approach but understands the promotion process intimately. The speaker argues that promotions are a process that can be broken down and optimized, and it's crucial to understand the criteria and steps involved. They share personal experiences of how changes in the promotion process affected their career growth, emphasizing the need for proactive engagement with one's career development.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Promotion
💡Principal Engineer
💡Lockdown
💡Meritocracy
💡Process Optimization
💡Senior Software Developer (SD)
💡Feedback
💡Peter Principle
💡Tangible Evidence
💡Scope
💡Career Growth
Highlights
Promotion to Principal Engineer at Amazon was achieved after multiple failures, highlighting the importance of persistence.
The promotion announcement during lockdown led to a flood of congratulations via email and Slack.
Success in promotion did not feel as rewarding as the previous failures, indicating a complex emotional journey.
The journey from Support Engineer to Senior SD was rapid, showcasing early career progression.
The struggle to become an L7 Principal Engineer involved five unsuccessful attempts over four years.
The promotion process is not a meritocracy but a process that can be understood and optimized.
Understanding the promotion criteria and process is crucial for career advancement.
The promotion process at the company changed multiple times, affecting the candidate's ability to advance.
Tech promotions require demonstrating competence at the next level, contrary to the Peter Principle.
High performance at one's current level is not sufficient for promotion; next-level demonstration is necessary.
Gathering tangible evidence of operating at the next level is more effective than qualitative endorsements.
Providing concrete examples of contributions can make promotion feedback more compelling.
Writing the desired feedback for oneself can guide actions to elicit that feedback from others.
The video offers a structured approach to promotion, including the 'Promotion Algorithm'.
Comparing hypothetical individuals, Russell and Matt, illustrates the complexity of promotion decisions.
The story of Lance demonstrates how understanding promotion criteria can lead to success.
The video encourages viewers to register for a 'speedrun to promotion' launch event for more detailed strategies.
Transcripts
during q1 of 2020 I was promoted to
principal engineer at Amazon I received
hundreds of congratulations via email
and slack when the announcement was made
the lockdown had just started so I
suspect many more people were glued to
social media than usual but as I sat in
my makeship home office receiving these
messages I thought to myself that I
should feel happier was this it what the
people sending those messages didn't see
was that I'd been put up for promotion
and failed five times over the previous
four years My Success did not feel as
good as those five previous attempts
felt bad not by a long shot the funny
part is getting to senior SD was the
exact opposite experience I started at
Amazon as a support engineer in 2006 and
made a lateral move to L4 sd1 in
December of 2007 I got to sd2 in q1 of
2009 and made it to senior SD or sd3 in
q1 of 2012 I was flying through the
ranks and by 2016 4 years after my last
promotion I thought I was ready to
become an L7 principal engineer but it
wasn't meant to be I'd gotten pretty far
by winging it but once I got stuck I
didn't know what to do to unstick myself
in this video I'll give you three
lessons I learned from this really
frustrating experience I hope you can
just skip past these difficult bits if
you're new to the channel welcome my
name is Steve meta Scuba Steve or as my
wife likes to call me Steve and I'm an
L7 principal engineer on this channel we
take a structured and Engineering
approach to your life and career before
I get into my first lesson let's compare
two hypothetical people Russell isn't
afraid to work nights and weekends when
called upon actually he's usually
working nights because he finds work
really engaging nobody's checked in more
code or squashed more bugs than he has
he jumps at the chance to help others on
board and is super helpful with code
review comments helping others get
better themselves and russle is awesome
to work with on the other end of the
spectrum is Matt he rolls into the
office whenever he wakes up which may or
may not be in time for standup he never
works nights or weekends and stops
working at 5:00 p.m every day but
sometimes that's closer to 3 Matt checks
in an average amount of code and solves
an average amount of bugs he helps
people only when he has to and to be
quite honest he's a bit of a jerk when
people do ask for help between Russell
and Matt who's going to get promoted
first on the surface it seems like
Russell is going above and beyond so it
must be him but what if I told you that
Matt knew intimately the details of the
promotion process at their company while
Russell didn't and he was just hoping
that his performance was going to be
noticed well then I'd switch and say
that it's hard to know who was going to
get promoted first despite the fact that
Matt doesn't seem to be performing very
well and Russell is killing it this is
my first point which is that promotions
aren't a meritocracy they're a process
and just like any process they aren't
perfect but they can also be broken down
and optimized for many companies publish
their promotion criteria and processes
but even if your company doesn't if
you'd like to get promoted the first
step is to understand what that process
is you can do this by asking your
manager co-workers that got promoted in
the past or your HR business partner you
can't beat a game if you don't know what
the wi conditions are during the four
years when I was trying to get promoted
my company changed the process for l 7
promotions three times when they changed
I didn't get clarifications on what the
impact of the changes would be to my
particular promotion one of these
changes shifted the responsibility for a
promotion task from me to my manager
because I didn't know about the change
we weren't able to finish that step in
time and that set me back another cycle
which was 6 months all because I didn't
understand these steps you own your
career growth if it's an outcome that
you want you need to push for it and
understand what it takes for my next
Point let me tell you a story from some
when I mentored to the next level for
this video let's call him Lance Lance
was kicking butt he wrote a lot of high
quality code he fixed a lot of bugs he
made quick work of every task that was
picked up Lance does what he's told his
co-workers love him and his boss was
really happy with his work but when it
came time to get feedback from his
co-workers for promotion his feedback
providers weren't supportive and Lance
was a bit confused when we spoke he was
meeting all of the expectations for his
level and his performance was Stellar
why is it that high performance at level
wasn't enough for the next level level
the reason is because Tech promotions
are anti- Peter Principle the Peter
Principle is the idea that if you're
competent at your current level you
should get promoted Tech promotions are
almost always anti- Peter Principle that
is you have to demonstrate competence at
the next level before the promotion is
given to you the lesson here is that
promotions are not a reward for good
work but rather given to people that can
demonstrate that they can handle a
broader scope companies that publish
their promotion criteria are essentially
describing what that next level scope is
this usually doesn't come in the form of
checklists if it did then it would be a
simple matter of checking all the boxes
instead what you want to provide are
multiple data points of Next Level Scope
when I shared this mental model with
Lance he finally got it performance at
level even high performance there isn't
enough to get promoted on his next
project he took on more than what was
expected and he got promoted just 3
months later and that brings me to the
last lesson that I'll share with you
today suppose you had a choice between
two surgeons to do life-saving heart
surgery on you the research literature
states that people with your condition
have a 75% chance of survival for the
first surgeon all you have are glowing
reviews from previous patients they all
take the form of he's a great doctor I
would trust him to do it again in a
heartbeat pun intended and for the
second surgeon for some reason there was
a problem with getting reviews but you
had the raw data the second surgeon has
a 95% success rate a whopping 20% more
than the average so which one would you
choose of course you're going to choose
the second it's not because the good
reviews are a bad thing but because the
reviews suffer from literal Survivor bi
nobody that had a bad review was around
to give it but more than that it's
really difficult not to pick the second
one in light of the concrete evidence
that the second surgeon is really
effective at the procedure it's the same
thing when it comes to promotion if
you're able to document Next Level data
points with concrete evidence that
you're operating at the next level that
trumps any qualitative endorsement in
other words the lesson is that you
should gather tangible evidence that
you're operating at the next level I've
been witnessed to several promotions
that were kicked back because the entire
promotion packet was filled with
statement ments like Steve is a great
engineer whenever there's a problem I
trust that Steve will do the right thing
or Steve was instrumental to the project
name launch without him the project
would have been delivered late and with
more defects the problem with this type
of feedback is that it neglects to
isolate the specific contribution of the
person in question and to highlight why
that contribution demonstrates Next
Level scope instead a much more
effective Passage would read Steve was
responsible for Designing coding and
delivering a critical component for
project name it was a tricky thing to
write because because a component had to
provide a response to clients in under
10 milliseconds whereas a component that
he was replacing generated a response in
100 milliseconds he was able to do this
because he made the critical Insight
that many of the responses could be
pre-computed it's the same work but you
can see how the second piece of feedback
is much more compelling so how do you
get people to write such good feedback
for you it's simple generally you'll
know who will be giving you feedback for
promotion all you have to do is write
the feedback that you'd like to see from
them even if your project hasn't been
delivered yet as you do your work make
sure that you operate in a way that will
lead to the feedback that you want and
when promotion time comes you can send
them a little message that reminds them
of what they witnessed I do a similar
thing with my YouTube videos as part of
my process I write down the type of
comments that I want to elicit then when
I make my videos I try to do them in a
way that will generate the comments that
I want for the video for this video the
comments I wanted were I'm so glad that
I found your channel I just binged all
of your content and the content in your
videos is gold thanks for making them if
you start from the feedback that you
want from people and work backwards from
that it makes the process itself less
ambiguous because it gives you a Target
if you found these tips to be useful
make sure to register for the speedrun
to promotion launch event I'll go into
much more detail about the structured
approach to promotion that I developed
the promotion algorithm the link is in
the description if you found this video
to be useful check out my video on three
things holding back your promotion to
senior engineer if you're already a
senior engineer check out this video for
three things holding back your promotion
to staff or principal engineer
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