This Is What Most Companies Get WRONG About Promotion

- 2 types of promotion:
  - **Strong companies:** Already functioning at the next level
  - **Weak companies:** Mastery of current level + long tenure
- In the best tech companies, each level is fundamentally different from the previous one. This is why promotion is lagging there: You need to be functioning at the next level consistently for 3-6 months before getting promotion.
- The goal is to avoid the Peter Principle: Getting promoted to higher and higher levels until you are completely incompetent. When levels are truly meaningful, it's really easy to be doing great at your current level and then be struggling to survive at the next one.

2 types of promotion:
  Strong companies: Already functioning at the next level
  Weak companies: Mastery of current lev

This collection represents the best of what Taro has to offer, personally curated by Alex and Rahul. If you're short on time, go through the content here.

This is an absolutely vital process for any employee in tech to understand, especially in a world of stack-ranking and layoffs.

[Masterclass] How To Navigate Your Performance Review In Tech

The slides provide a great high-level overview of the entire session for your notes, so here's our Top 5 thoughts that aren't entirely in the slides:

- Not deeply understanding your company's performance review cycle is job suicide, especially in the current age of layoffs and stack-rank (the latter being perennial).
- If you're truly working at a top company, you shouldn't be promoted to the next level unless you have been functioning there for at least 3-6 months. Companies that don't do this tend to promote due to raw experience and have many incompetent people at senior+ levels.
- Always have a plan for your performance review, even if your goal is just to be average and survive. Work with your manager at the beginning of every cycle to create a clear and living expectations document.
- Be very deliberate about the peers you want leaving feedback for you on your performance review. Assemble that cast at the beginning of the cycle and start building those deep 1 on 1 relationships once you have done that.
- When you are asked to leave constructive feedback for a peer, flip the question from *"What did they do poorly?"* to *"How can they expand their scope?"*. This will become easier as you reach an L5 (senior) level and more deeply understand what each engineering level means.

Related resources:

- [\[Masterclass\] What Software Engineers Should Look For In Their Engineering Manager](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/oeY7ncZhzJ5NO6dij5e7/masterclass-what-software-engineers-should-look-for-in-their-engineering-manager/)
- [\[Masterclass\] How To Get Promoted Faster In Tech](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/W730BOdrfAIXAEVd8HUf/masterclass-how-to-get-promoted-faster-in-tech/)
- [\[Masterclass\] How To Have Impactful 1:1 Meetings](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/FEK6JZqW2Jg3rdN9yeGn/masterclass-how-to-have-impactful-1-on-1-meetings/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/142PsWRJ-fmdP42CrFpR0VD64L1qFP-6nPTmjk5g1DKM/edit?usp=sharing)