Name: Asking For A Promotion: The Wrong Way vs. The Right Way
Uploaded: 2023-11-02T01:38:52+00:00
Duration: 4 min 13 s
Description: We all want more money and a higher title

Asking For A Promotion: The Wrong Way vs. The Right Way

We all want more money and a higher title. However, it's important to remember that it's not your engineering manager's primary goal to give you those things. When it comes to the promotion discussion, it's crucial to frame it in a mutually beneficial way.

Here are the core points from the video:
- **Do not**: Frame promotion as something that you inherently deserve from being on the team for a while, making the entire conversation seem like an exercise purely for *your* benefit.
- **Do**: Show your loyalty to the team and make it clear that investing into your growth and promotion is mutually beneficial. Your goal is to have more impact and empower the team - The money and title are more of a secondary benefit you'll happen to achieve along the way.

Related resources:
- [[Taro Top 10] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -> M Track)](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp/)
- [[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/)
- [[Taro Top 10] Getting Promoted Faster In Tech](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/eZOEUatYEe7BBAZByuha/)

We all want more money and a higher title

At the end of the day, working in tech, or anywhere really, is all about working with other human beings. Communication is the core skill necessary to make this collaboration effective.

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

The clearest way a company can acknowledge your growth. At the end of the day, you can't solely interview your way to a principal engineer; promotion is the true foundation of your pay and career.

Doing this properly is a hard requirement for professional success. As a software engineer in particular, this relationship needs to be carefully navigated to achieve maximum impact.

[Masterclass] How To Work Better With Your Engineering Manager

Your engineering manager (EM) is easily the most important figure in your professional life, and how you manage your engineer &lt;-&gt; EM relationships across your various teams and companies will largely dictate how much career growth you have. The tricky part is that all of this is very hard, and if you don't do it properly, you can end up working against your manager instead of with them.

As always, the masterclass covers a *ton* of ground, so here's the Top 5 points:

- **Engineering management is a very hard job** - EMs are completely slammed with meetings and are constantly making hard decisions (e.g. *"Who do I hire and fire?"*). The first step towards fostering a healthy relationship here is having empathy for the natural difficulty behind their role.
- **It's up to YOU to leverage your manager** - Don't expect your manager to solo-carry you by proactively identifying all your issues and handing you the perfect growth plan on a silver platter. Nobody can read minds, and nobody cares about your personal growth more than you. Treat your manager as a resource, similar to how a front-end application treats an API. The API will never come to you - It's up to you to call it with the proper parameters to achieve the result you want.
- **Be extremely visible** - Be default, assume that your EM has 0 clue what you're doing, not out of malice but because they're swamped most of the time. cc your manager on important communications to keep them up-to-date with your biggest accomplishments and blockers. Add them as optional on meetings. Use your 1 on 1 to share crucial wins and status updates.
- **Maintain an ongoing dialog about performance** - Your performance review rating should never be a (negative) surprise. Ask every couple months for your manager to give you a hypothetical rating (make it clear that you will take it with a massive grain of salt). Don't let your fear of these awkward, transparent conversations lead to you getting put on an unexpected PIP.
- **Frame promotion as a mutual benefit** - It is not the manager's job to grow their engineers and get them all promoted; this is actually literally impossible in the current economy. It's the manager's job to make sure that their engineers are consistently shipping impact. This means that you must be extremely careful framing your promotion in a way where it's clear that your goal is to expand your impact and further empower the team, not to get more money and a higher title (it's totally fine to want these, they just have to be very far away from front and center).

Related resources:

- [Having The Proper Mentality For Manager 1 on 1s](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/sIm7s54ILdBQmpCtKFtb/having-the-proper-mentality-for-manager-1-on-1s/)
- [1 on 1s Are The Time To Be Awkward](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/xjeFRpp5YHxG9TTK8wjn/1-on-1s-are-the-time-to-be-awkward/)
- ["How do I create a growth plan with my manager/mentor and what should it include?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/BG4rWlnWQamBFI9ujCni/how-do-i-create-a-growth-plan-with-my-managermentor-and-what-should-it-include/)
- ["How do I give critical feedback to my manager?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/VeGFF3JbpstS3Av5jpHB/how-do-i-give-critical-feedback-to-my-manager/)
- [\[Masterclass\] 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/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zS7GJQmpZRS-fo-ZiiV5cHjdat9gHStPFVnA0awlFM0/edit?usp=sharing)