Resurfacing a discussion about a promotion with my manager

Question

I’m an entry-level SDE at my company and we recently hired a new manager for our team. In my second 1:1 with this manager, they said I am already performing at the level of an SDE II and would like to get me promoted. I did get the feeling that I did quite a lot for my level, and I maxed out the rubric for all the areas we measure at our company last year. Got good peer reviews as well.

It's been about a month since this conversation and I'd like some advice on what I should do. Should I prepare a packet of some kind to help them make the decision? Should I just wait?

Rahul Pandey · Accepted Answer

A few things to consider:

How much clarity do you have on the promotion process at the company? If there's a lot of extra work required for promotion, you should have the conversation earlier to ensure all your ducks are in a row.
Establish a "date for a date": in your next 1:1, mention a date in the future when you can properly dive into your promotion progress and feedback with your manager. This usually works better compared to springing a promotion discussion on your manager.
Make sure you have some durable record of what you talked about in each 1:1. This is genuinely useful to remember discussions, but also serves as the paper trail showing how close you are to promotion.

Resources:

1 on 1 Meetings Are An Exercise In Proactivity
The #1 Thing To Remember With Meetings
promotions.fyi to see how various Big Tech companies do promo/perf reviews

Resurfacing a discussion about a promotion with my manager

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