Is It Worth Doing Extra Work To Get Promoted As A Software Developer?

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, I'm just leaving the office here. We're going to go to Reddit for a topic today, experience dev subreddit. I don't have it pulled up right in front of me. Um, but this topic is around sort of like doing extra work to get promoted. So again, I don't have the direct quote post in front of me, but essentially it's along the lines of like, hey, I'm working for my manager. And I've asked them about what things I can do like extra to get promoted. And so their post is really about like, you know, is it worth it? What's like what's the the work life balance? Like let's talk about this, right? So, um, I feel like, you know, I've mentioned this before, sometimes I scan through the comments, other times I don't. This time I scan through the comments. The couple that I read seemed like, um, I think pretty much in line with kind of what I was thinking when I first read this question.

And I have talked about some similar things like this before. Hey, why are we stopped here, sir? There literally no reason to be stopped. Uh these people uh cannot drive. That's okay. Um and really like I have a a handful of different I guess perspectives on this and it's going to be a very situational thing for different individuals. So, um, I I can share kind of like what I would as an engineering manager, kind of what I would recommend to like the average person, I guess, uh, if I were to generalize and then maybe some things for you to think about and how you might tailor this for your own, you know, your own life. Um, I thought it was interesting this person said in their post something along the lines of like, I work from home, so the work life balance part is figured out.

And in my head, I was like, uh, no, absolutely not because I also work from home most of the time. And let me tell you, uh, it's very easy for work life balance to not happen. So, um, let's kind of chat through this. I think again focusing on maybe what I would call is like the average person or just like to to generalize um when we talk about promotions right some of you uh are probably very aware with this others uh maybe not depending on your experience but um generally the way promotions work is that we do not as engineering managers give promotions to people um in hopes that they can do the work of that that level, right? So, the idea is not like, well, you know, I have Billy on my team and like Billy's doing okay, but I think if I give him this promotion, I think Billy like will step up into that and then I I think Billy should be able to do it.

It doesn't work that way. It's uh I mean, shouldn't say it never works that way. It's pretty rare. It's not um probably most engineering managers do not lean into that. It works the other way and it's essentially Billy has been demonstrating that Billy can do the work of the next level. Billy's made that very clear. Billy's been very consistent with that. Now I feel very confident and comfortable getting Billy to that level. Right. And this is more and more the case uh as people gain levels in seniority and we're you know I worked at a startup for a long time for eight years first eight years of my career after after university and um we didn't really have like we had levels kind of uh for IC's we had developer and senior developer that was it uh and senior was kind of introduced and then we kind of paused it cuz we were like we don't know what the hell we're doing.

So like some places you know the levels and stuff don't really make sense and other places like in big tech I think it's a lot more common that there's lots of levels everyone's very focused on their career progression um this sort of thing. So, um, when you have, that's a good way to say this, when you have all of these levels that you can sort of progress towards. The idea is that, especially in the beginning, I'm not saying the bar is set low necessarily, that's not like that's not fair. Obviously, when you're more junior, you move quicker through levels when you are more junior. If you're working at a place that has lots of levels and obviously the pace slows down and the bar is higher and higher and higher, um it's it's according to the level, right? It's not like it's not linear, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

It's a really shitty way of trying to say it's just not linear in terms of time that goes into it. And so the requirements and the expectations at those higher levels are also greater. Right? I've said this many times in other videos, including for my own promotions that like it's it's not just your manager says so and then it happens. Um that's like the minimum that needs to happen is your manager goes yep. And then in my case, it's like manager and skip level have to say yeah. and then it goes to other people that are sort of the peers of my skip level across the organization. Now for people that are more junior that sort of uh level of scrutiny is not really there.

So like if I have a junior engineer that reports to me often times it's you know if I say yes that person I feel like is ready for the next level and they're sort of at the the very beginner level or that and Microsoft for us it's like level 59 is uh you know junior engineer and 60 is the next level but like if I say this person's ready for 60 I'm likely not going to face a lot of push back right it's like okay you know, it's it's more understood, I guess, and the there's a lot more trust in just the manager being able to say so. So, point is that with all of this stuff, we need like we will need evidence and we will need more evidence because we have to convince other people about promotions. So, it's um just something to think about when we talk through this, right?

It's not just about um you know I I think someone can do a good job so therefore I'm going to put them there. We need to be convinced so that we can convince others. And so this person's asking about doing extra work, right? And I have awareness of this and I've mentioned this in another video though that my manager even said it I think in a pretty I'm not even going to do it justice but he the way that he said it to me I thought was like you know it's like a very obvious way to put it and it was essentially like look based on what I just said around like you need to be performing at that next level to get a promotion to it. Imagine if you were like, "Okay, in order for me to get promoted in order for me to do the things that are expected of me at the next level, I need to go do all of this extra work, right?

I have to work these extra hours. I have to work weekends. That's the way that I'm going to be able to deliver at the next level." Well, guess what happens, right? Let's say you get that promotion. If the only way that you were able to do that work is working those extra hours and working those weekends, what happens when you stop? Right? If that's what you needed to do in order to get to the next level, you don't just get there and then you go, "Okay, well, I don't have to do that anymore." Because now you're not actually operating at that next level if you change nothing else. Right? So the idea is that it's not just about doing more work. It's not about trying to like, you know, you completely burn yourself out and like not have a life outside of work and that's the only way that you're going to get promoted.

Sometimes it might feel like that, but that might also mean that you're not working on, you know, sort of the right scope of work. And I want to be careful too when I talk about this because I would say that like I have a a mixed experience with this because what I'm describing right now I feel like is very much I feel like that's an accurate representation of what I would expect um probably most places for most people especially like my experience in big tech. I will say though that when I worked at a startup, I already told you like we didn't really have like much for levels and stuff like but in terms of like you know compensation uh you know feeling like feeling like you're being rewarded and acknowledged like I worked a ton. No one made me, but I worked a ton. And like I feel like there was a feedback loop there.

And you might have, the reason I'm sharing this is because you might be at a place that's like this, but I feel like there was a feedback loop there that wasn't necessarily promotion, but it was very much incentivizing me to be like, hey, you know, keep, you know, keep working, keep doing this. And I'm not complaining about that. I'm not saying that's wrong or whatever. that was actually very much aligned for like my, you know, my outlook on things. I was like, "Do more work. Do awesome work. You're empowered to do it. We're grateful for it. Here's compensation for it." So, like, why would I not keep doing it, right? There was this really, in my opinion, for me, a good feedback loop of do more work, do better work, get more for it. I do not think that's the same or a sustainable thing in lots of companies.

In fact, like not this isn't a knock on Microsoft, but I feel like if I were to just, you know, work non-stop at Microsoft, sure, like maybe I'm doing some things that are big impact, sure, maybe maybe that does at some point lead to a promotion. But the reality is again, you can't just take your foot off the gas and say I, you know, I hit the next level, I can just stop doing all of this because you've now set the new bar. Like that's the the sort of the point that I'm trying to get across, right? So you have to be pretty careful about doing this kind of thing. So my recommendation to people is it's like a tricky balance. Like I I think that there's some merit in saying like you need to be going beyond what your like your current scope is. There needs to be some amount of stretch, but the amount of stretch is not like just do tons of work.

I don't know if that makes sense. I'm not suggesting just do tons of work. I am suggesting you probably have to look beyond your immediate responsibilities. But hopefully that actually makes sense because I'm already telling you and I've been saying this in this talk so far to be promoted you need to be operating at the next level. But what is the next level? Like what does that mean? Right? And that definition actually changes depending on sort of your career stage. Right? in the beginning like when you are very you know junior developer you're new to the industry you're sort of just working some of that is doing more stuff but it's not just like I have to go fix every bug or I have to do every feature or I have to be coding non-stop no like some of that in the beginning is absolutely

like building some momentum building some independence in the work you're doing right being able to take on work that is a little bit more ambiguous or being able to work through things where you know, not that you're not allowed to ask questions. I never want to discourage people from asking questions, but you don't need to rely on someone more senior through every step of the way. You don't need to rely on them for it. You can absolutely ask questions. Right? There's this there's a difference, and I don't know if I'm doing a good job of explaining it, between like having some autonomy and independence versus like siloing and isolating yourself. Those last two things are not so great. The first two things are great. So there is some amount of like do more but it changes like it changes as your as your levels change because the expectations are different.

Um, right. And I think it gets confusing because especially for some people if they're looking at people that are more senior on the team, they're like, "Well, this person does a lot more than me." And it's like, "Sure, but like it's not just that they do more things than you or they close more bugs. It's like there's going to be some work for them that the scope of that work if they have to do it, it's like they can probably close it out pretty quick because they're very efficient at it, right? But the actual other work that they're doing that's more level appropriate for them is actually much larger. It is like big work streams and big projects and stuff like that. So, you can't just take on like Come on, buddy. Get in here. You can't just take on like tons of these projects and saying like, "Oh, I got to do all of these things." Like, no, you will drown in work.

And that's hopefully not what the more senior people are doing, but the perception you have of them might be that they're doing so many more things. And again, they might they might be doing more things than you. That's not really the point. The point is that the the impact of the work they're doing or the scope of the work that they're doing is on a much larger scale, much greater impact. So, um, if that's not super confusing, the point I'm trying to get across is it's not about more work. It's sort of, this is going to be a weird way to say it. It's almost like the value of that work or the impact of that work, right? It's not and maybe I haven't really thought through this as with most of my videos that I do on this channel.

the I want to see if I can give you an example that's not like okay so let's say in some period of time where you're you know going from a junior engineer to the next level and if you were to reflect on that you're like hey I did x number of features okay in that time what what wouldn't make sense and is to say like okay to get to the you know someone who's more senior on your team for them to get promoted all that they do is like 10 times that many things. It's not just about doing more things of the same size. Like does that make sense? It's not just more things. It's things that have greater impact. Someone might be working on one thing. Right?

you closed out 10 bugs and did four features and they're, you know, working towards delivering this one big thing that's across the organization and then they end up landing it and that ends up being something that they can say like hey look I coordinated this I worked through this and you know through this period of time I've been able to demonstrate this impact also by the way I've talked about this before but I don't like anchoring promotion to like a single project. That doesn't make sense to me. Um, but I think that you can absolutely use like evidence demonstrating the qualities of the next level. I got to pass this person. This is ridiculous. If I'm driving in the fast lane, we better be at least going the speed limit cuz I'm paying to be here. Um, spoke too soon. Damn it. Okay. So hopefully that's making sense so far.

It's not just more work. It's like scope of impact. But still, the the thing that you really need to consider is like even if you're working on something that's not just more more features or more bugs or whatever, even if it is just like fewer things that are of greater impact, you still need to balance like how much time and effort are you putting into that because if you're not working more effectively through that kind of stuff because you aren't experienced and it's uh you know difficult to navigate, these are new challenges for you, that's not meant in a condescending way. For what it's worth, I mean it genuinely like if you're working the first time you work on a big project that's cross team and you're working with different partner teams that you've never worked with before and there's dependencies on them and stuff like it's probably not going to go perfectly smoothly because nothing ever does and it's your first time doing it.

That's okay. But the more times you do this, the more experience you have doing it and the more things that you can go cool. I see some of the signs going on or I've dealt with things like this before. Here's how I'll navigate it. Right? You become more efficient at these things the more time you you do them. I'm not trying to say that it's cuz you suck like or you're bad or you're stupid. So, you become more efficient at these things. And I think that's that's part of it is like to try and shortcut this stuff is like yeah, you can try working on some more things. You can try working on some things that are are bigger impact or larger scale. And that's not a bad thing. It's not bad. It's just that like you can't go overboard with it and you still need to strike a balance that's going to make sense for you, right?

because it's not check the box, do it once, get the promotion, you go woo and then I don't have to ever do that again because now the bar is raised and the expectation is that you can operate at that level, right? So, I think it's good to find ways to stretch yourself, to get out of your comfort zone because that's how you grow, but not to a point where you're like, I'm doing all these things and I can barely, you know, barely survive, but it's all cuz I'm going to get promoted and then I'll I'll be done. Like, it doesn't it just doesn't really work that way. It's not sustainable. Now, the next thing that I want to kind of uh bridge into here is like, and I think some comments on the Reddit post did a good job of this. It's like, where's I know some of the viewers of this channel know what I'm going to say next.

They're predicting it. They're sensing it. They're going, "He hasn't said it yet." Right? And that's that's your cue. It's have you talked to your manager about this yet? Because if you're like, "Hey, I want to get promoted. I'm just going to start doing all this extra shit." If it's not the right if it's not important that just might be you like doing extra work. Or maybe they're your manager's not aware of it. Or maybe you're doing this extra stuff thinking you're doing an awesome job, but like you're dropping the ball on, you know, some other things you were expected to do. like talk to your manager, get on the same page with this kind of stuff. In this case, just to to make a point, in this case, this individual wrote in the Reddit post something along the lines of like, I asked my manager

about doing some extra work for promotion, and their manager said something along the lines of like, you're already doing a good job and you are like, you are on track for that. And I think in their mind they they're still perceiving that as well they're they're kind of like gatekeeping the extra work from me or like what is the extra work I need to do? But the feedback maybe and we don't know we weren't in the conversation with them and their manager but the feedback was like you don't need to be doing extra work you're on track for it. So in a situation like this, I'm I'm trying to think about if I have talked to an employee on my team and I said something similar. If they were to just start doing more stuff like if my feedback to them was you are on track for promotion, what I what I mean by that is like you are working on the things that I think are the right impact.

they're addressing the right things that I need to look for in the next level. That should be sufficient evidence for me to talk about this at promotion cycle, which by the way, some companies have promotion cycles, others don't. Maybe you get promoted at random times. I don't know. I'm not I haven't worked at every company. Microsoft has, at least in Office 365 side of the world, we have four. There is one main one, the main performance review cycle. There is the off cycle which is the exact opposite time of the year. And then there are two sort of at the other quarters. Okay? So there's four opportunities. They don't all get the same weight. In fact, one of them gets the least weight because it's basically like if there's no budget at that time of the year to promote people, there's no budget. It doesn't happen.

Right? So, there's some timeline that we're working within as managers. And again, I'm just sharing my own experience. If you work at a different place or you're a manager, you've worked for a manager at a different place and this doesn't line up. this is my experience at Microsoft. Um, if I've told someone, we've had this conversation around like, hey, like they're saying, hey, what can I what else can I do? What's extra? Or am I on track? And I'm like, you are doing, you know, the projects you got going on, the work you're doing, the way that you're operating. I think that you're doing a I think you're doing an excellent job, and I think that you're on track for promotion, right? Right? I I never promise people promotions at certain times. I don't say finish this project, you'll get promoted. I can't make promises like that.

It's not wise and it's not true. I can say to people like I think that you are working on the right things. I feel confident having promotion conversations at promotion cycle based on this. But like I can't make a promise about the promotion actually happening because it's literally not a thing I get to sign off on. It just isn't. So if I were having this conversation with an employee and tried to tell them this, it's because I mean it like I need to wait this amount of time and all of the things that you're doing, I feel that you are prepared and doing the right things for promotion at this this next phase. Now things could change, right? Some people might hear something like that and they're demotivated by it and then they they drop off. Some people might, you know, this person's case it's like I got to do more, right?

It's like that's not that's not what the feedback was. The feedback was not do more things. I have had conversations with employees. Literally, I've had conversations with employees where they're saying like, "I need to do more. I need more things. Like, I'm trying to get promoted. I need more." And I'm going, "More is not the answer. I am the person who is trying to help you. I want you to grow in your career." Right? If I'm telling personally, if I'm telling you this can be different for other managers, if I'm saying more is not the answer or going faster is not the answer, it's because those aren't the things to focus on. And I will be try to be very transparent with people about that. Right? For some people, it might be the opposite. It's like, hey, in order to get promoted, like to move in that direction, there needs to be more like some type of throughput.

you're actually not landing work, right? Like there the impact to demonstrate that is just not seen yet. So there needs to be more because if I were to go have a promotion conversation and it's like well tell us about the impact this person's had and I'm like uh they haven't done anything like you know they they've written a lot of code but like nothing's actually happened with it. like, okay, well, like what you I need to be able to have a story about the impact. And by the way, that might be a bad example because someone might say, well, what if I work on a project and it gets cancelled or something like that. That's not necessarily the end of the world because there's some things that are outside of people's control and I can still be able to demonstrate like all of the work that someone was doing, even if a project got cancelled or something, was still very good work.

How they were operating was really good. So, I don't want that to be misleading. My point is that it's like try to work with your manager and get their feedback on this. I understand that some people cuz I, you know, as a manager talking to other managers and developers, especially trying to make content like this, there are always people, rightfully so, that are like, "Nick, that's not how my manager works." Or like, "I hate my manager." Or, "My manager is a piece of or whatever. I get it, right? Like everyone has different experiences, but my general advice to people is still to go talk to your manager to get aligned expectations. That's always going to be my advice. If you're like, I can't do that. My manager sucks. I would say, guess what? You might be in the wrong spot. You should probably get to a spot where you can find that kind of thing.

Right? It's a different conversation, but my ultimate advice is like you want to move in that direction where you can have a conversation with your manager about this stuff. So, back to this Reddit post, if this person is getting the feedback, hey, you don't need to do extra stuff. I feel that you're on track for promotion, like this is this is goodness. I would hopefully, you know, I can't say this for sure, but I would want this person to be able to trust their manager's feedback because what could happen is that this person goes and does a bunch of extra and it doesn't actually help anything. It doesn't help their case for promotion. Maybe they do too much and they're burnt out from it. Maybe they do too much and they can't. They're dropping the ball on their normal work, right? The already expected work. now they're underperforming, right?

There's there's a lot of things that could happen. It might very well turn out that they do some extra work and they kick ass. Like, that's possible. You know, there's lots of different things that could happen here, but I think if the motivation is I just need to do more then to get promoted. I just don't think that's the answer here. Now, one of the other things they called out was, "Hey, if I do extra things, that could be good learning opportunities like that I'm not like stagnating." And like, sure, like I think I think that's a great that's a great reason. Do you want to do extra things because you want to go learn or like you are, I don't know, like intrinsically motivated to be able to do more things. Sure. Right. This goes back to what I was saying when I was working at a startup.

I had a couple things going on. One, I had a lot of autonomy. Sorry, I'm talking louder cuz it's raining, which might sound silly, but I don't know how much the rain is drowning out my microphone cuz it's raining really hard. Um, I had a lot of autonomy. I got to work on really interesting problems. I was compensated for doing it. I could see the direct impact on you know how the company was able to keep growing. I could have uh you know impact for our end users because the mission was really uh you know inspiring for me. So like all of these things were like check check check check. I'm going to keep working. Really good reason for me to do it. We didn't really have roles right like levels. I mean, so we'd had roles. We didn't really have levels. So, the motivation was not how do I go get promoted?

It was all these other things. So, again, if you're if you have these other motivating factors, like I think that could be fine, but like for me, some of those things wouldn't make sense right now, right? If if Microsoft was like, "Hey, Nick, if you just work If you just do twice as much, we'll pay you twice as much. I mean, maybe, but like I don't I don't think it's going to work. And I think, you know, especially at this stage of my life, I'd have to be like to my wife, hey, look, like, do you want me to go like burn the hell out for however long I can sustain this just to make way more money? And maybe that's a conversation we have and maybe the answer is yes. But like I don't think that um I don't think that I could work the way that I used to anymore given the same motivators, right?

Um so anyway, this is sort of the last part of the the conversation here which is like this stuff is situational. I think in this person's case based on the Reddit post and what I would say for you know most people is like the reality is if you're getting feedback from your manager that's like you are on track I wouldn't try to go kill yourself doing extra work. I'm not saying like stop what you're doing but the feedback in this case was you are on track. You could maybe ask more clarity around like what does that mean, right? Like maybe they're like, I don't know when the promotion cycle is. Are you talking about this promotion cycle or the next one? I don't know. You could ask for clarity on that.

But if you're finding these other motivating factors and that works out for your work life balance or the things that you want to focus on, I'm not like I would never tell someone like, hey, don't work more even if you want to for some reason because because that's the rule because you're not going to get promoted for it, right? Like hell no. if like if there's a different motivator that you're aligned with or set of motivating factors that you're aligned with, why the hell would I tell you to not do that? I think it's really just about making that conscious decision for like why you're doing it. So, I hope that makes sense. Anyway, um I think that's all I got to say about that. So, specifically to this person, you're on track. That's the feedback you got. I would say if you're interested in learning more great.

Like maybe take on some extra challenges. But otherwise, like if it's purely around the promotion part, I would say no. Not right now. Cool. Okay. If you guys have questions in general, leave them below in the comments. Happy to try and make a video response for you. What is going on here? Oh my goodness, people. This is not okay. Um, otherwise you can go to codecommute.com. It can submit questions anonymously. There's a little check box. You check it off. It's anonymous. Basically, it comes in as an email for myself. So, I have no idea who you are. And I will try to make a video response for you. I got other YouTube channels. So, if you're interested in learning C or programming with AI tools, head over to Dev Leader. There's Dev Leader Path to Tech, I do resume reviews on that channel. And then the Devleer podcast.

There's a live stream every Monday, 700 p.m. Pacific. And I also, because it's a podcast channel, I also interview software developers or engineering managers, people in tech, hear about their career journey. I like focusing on that because I think it's very helpful for people to see that not everyone takes the same path and you can still have a very successful fulfilling career even if you didn't you know start programming when you were 2 years old or you're born with a keyboard in hand at the terminal hacking up assembly, right? Like everyone has a different path and you can still be successful. So that's what I try to show on that channel. So thank you so much for being here and I will see you in the next video. Take care.