I totally agree that beyond L6, luck is an important element in the promotion and advancement process, but there are also a few things you can do to help swing the odds in your favor. IMO, by far the most critical piece is finding a manager who will spend the time and effort to support your promotion path. Having incredible business results and being in a hyper growth team is super helpful, but if your manager doesn’t want to lean in on your promotion for whatever reason, you’ll still struggle. The other potential opportunity is understanding at what point of the employment process you have the most leverage to get a promotion. I’d argue it’s during the interview and recruitment process - I’ve seen no shortage of folks who got their L8 or L9 promo “on the way in”, by simply negotiating to take the job with a level increase. I suspect that path will be harder as long as we stay in this hiring environment where there’s a surplus of talent. The final thing I’ll say is that the folks who are proactive about managing their own promotion will fare better. Usually this means driving regular conversations with their manager and other stakeholders about gaps, taking feedback, and in some cases producing necessary materials to support the case.
Oddly enough I got the long comment in the email, so I saw the response and I agree that doing a deep dive on progress through transition would be an interesting topic.
I totally agree that beyond L6, luck is an important element in the promotion and advancement process, but there are also a few things you can do to help swing the odds in your favor. IMO, by far the most critical piece is finding a manager who will spend the time and effort to support your promotion path. Having incredible business results and being in a hyper growth team is super helpful, but if your manager doesn’t want to lean in on your promotion for whatever reason, you’ll still struggle. The other potential opportunity is understanding at what point of the employment process you have the most leverage to get a promotion. I’d argue it’s during the interview and recruitment process - I’ve seen no shortage of folks who got their L8 or L9 promo “on the way in”, by simply negotiating to take the job with a level increase. I suspect that path will be harder as long as we stay in this hiring environment where there’s a surplus of talent. The final thing I’ll say is that the folks who are proactive about managing their own promotion will fare better. Usually this means driving regular conversations with their manager and other stakeholders about gaps, taking feedback, and in some cases producing necessary materials to support the case.
Yeah, I think you're right across a couple of these points. I left a more comprehensive comment and Substack ate it unfortunately! :(
Really appreciate you stopping by to weigh in.
Oddly enough I got the long comment in the email, so I saw the response and I agree that doing a deep dive on progress through transition would be an interesting topic.