They Aren't Promoting Me - Should I Stay Here As A Developer?

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all right it's Monday January 6th I'm just leaving CrossFit got a different parking spot because if you watched the last video some absolute idiot parked a U-Haul like a truck with a U-Haul across all of the parking spots in front of the gym um I can't comprehend who was doing that or what they were thinking but um got a topic for today uh this one is uh a message from LinkedIn so I'm going to kind of paraphrase the message before I get driving so it's a lot more Fresh then you have it the context as well um this is a friendly reminder to like if you want questions answered leave them in the comments um but uh you know sending me a message on social media so if you look for Dev leader or you look for Nick centino like that's uh my name and

on LinkedIn you can find me that way it's a premium profile so you should be able to message me as far as I know that's how these people are doing it so um then you can write more have more context and I can provide more detail um so uh this person was saying they've been pushing for a promotion for about a year and a half now um they're talking about levels um levels are kind of tricky because they're completely different everywhere for what it's worth but um the context they have here is they're saying they're level one so I'm assuming that's I'm assuming that's the lowest level unless there's a level zero um and then they're saying but my team thought I was a level three for the performance I have so interesting point we'll come back to this my team thought I was a

level three I did a self- evaluation with my manager I don't really know uh what exactly what that means so self- evaluation with the manager um that makes it seem like it's not self like that's your manager's evaluation but anyway um I'm not I'm not criticizing this person's message I'm trying to interpret it um so at least they did like like a level setting kind of expectation with the manager a year and a half ago sat down with the manager and the manager apparently agreed that this person is working at a level two so they are operating at the next level and then the manager said work a few more months to really kind of solidify that um and for context a lot of the time managers like as a manager uh I can if I'm working with someone it's it's a lot more obvious

with Juniors but they'll you can see kind of the trajectory they're on and then what we want to be able to do is say like we want to make sure that you sustain that which is sometimes like frustrating feedback to get where you're like well you're saying I'm operating at this level so like like I'm at that level right but the the reality is like well we need the we need the evidence and we need to feel confident that you can sustain that I know it's frustrating to hear cuz it's a bit like ambiguous like okay well is that 2 weeks is that one month is that 3 months like what does it mean so it's a really difficult spot to be in but like that's that's why because if we have to go vouch for you we don't want to go say yeah work

we're confident and we're like but I'm actually not because they just started demonstrating this so it's it's kind of hard to to rationalize or explain I guess but that is the the rationale behind it um so work a few more months to assure that they are at a level two and he would ask my teammates I guess for feedback on that so go forward a little bit more they submit the promotion and rejected for not being at the company for a year so that's frustrating for sure uh some companies will have different criteria like I think it's kind of silly to have a a strict time requirement because uh you know I've literally had people on on my teams that have been underleveled have been overleveled and if there was a time requirement in some cases that would be like unfair like completely unfair and

if this person is Dem conting that they're at a you know performing at a higher level that feels unfair but that's how the company works not for me to to say um so okay they're they're saying fair enough got to be in that uh at the company for a year so fast forward another like 6 months or so bring up the topic about promotion requested another evaluation so the manager said hey like go do this evaluation we did before and and send it in so it looks like this this time this individual did the evaluation on their own I guess the first time it's it's a self- evaluation but the manager walked them through it I guess that's the the understanding so now they they send it in and it's been 4 months I'm not laughing because it's I'm laughing because this is like it's

frustrating it's a frustrated laugh for four months now and telling me every one ofone we'll have a separate conversation the following week so the manager is kind of like putting it off uh and it's been four months and he hasn't opened the document I don't know how this person knows that for sure um but let's assume that's correct right um so been four months and the manager hasn't even looked at it and seems to keep putting it off I've had level twos and threes so level above and two levels above on the team come and go since my time here that couldn't perform or do the work I did a question I'm not entirely sure what to go how to go about this situation they're frustrated I totally get that I don't want to keep nagging don't want to seem annoying but I haven't seen

any accountability on his side should I talk to his boss should I bring it up to him again or should I just give up and look for a new company um this is a great question um it's super frustrating so I you know sorry for this this individual let me get onto the street here I see a car coming at the slowest speed imaginable I guess I'm at a light so that makes sense okay let's get on the road here so where to start with this um I think the first thing that I want to talk about it's kind of like one of the first lines in the in the message that I think is important for other people to hear um and you you'll hear me kind of keep going back to this this topic like not just for this conversation but like in

general and one of the things that this person said at the beginning is like my teammates say that I operate at a level two and three kind of uh level and um while depending on where you work uh feedback from peers is important um it's not the deciding factor and I think that's really important to hear so um and and I want to give a brief example of like situations where like I have different insight and I will share some of this so the reality is like a manager I mean can probably should leverage peer feedback to make sure that what they're observing is uh is accurate uh if there's any sort of uh more specific details like if teammates were like hey like this person needs to work on X then like that can be surfaced or hey they're really excelling at y then

bring that up so lots of lots of good things can come from that but like the reality is the team is not the person or the group putting someone up for a promotion they don't have to go defend that to to other managers or to leadership it's a manager's responsibility so one of the challenging things when we get into situations like this is that it's good if the team is saying like yeah we think that you're doing well like that's good but that's not that's not it like just because the team says so does not matter okay I know that's kind of a weird thing to say but like it's helpful feedback to get to your manager but it's not it's not the thing that's going to get you the motion so when we start doing this we're doing like comparison and and things like

that and that's a bit of a dangerous game to play because you don't see all the things that are going on but um and as a manager I don't see everything that's going on either but um it's just it's a bit of a dangerous game to play when we start comparing because um when you don't have some of the other insights that are happening like it makes it it can be very frustrating CU you'll say well what about so and so why does so and so get this level and I don't but whatever or uh why are they being held back when they're clearly doing amazing um so a brief example I wanted to share with you is that I've worked um where there was an individual who I think to teammates or to peripheral teams uh looked like he was an absolute rock star

okay but it was about the it was because this person was doing a lot of things but what those individuals didn't see was that that individual was actually working on stuff that was distracting they weren't working on priority things and they were actually creating more work and more challenges for other people so they were kind of just like doing whatever they wanted to and other people would see just on the surface they're like wow like that person like look at how much they're doing like look at that cool thing and we were having conversations with the manager about how to basically get this under control because it was completely unwieldly because just because someone's doing stuff does not mean that it's valuable stuff does not mean that it's aligned with business priorities and it was a very big problem okay so other people are going

wow like look like this person clearly they're going to get promoted and it's like no like you don't see some of the conversations that are going on aside from that now for that person's case it's just a matter of like look they're clearly intelligent they're clearly very capable but we need the manager to work with them to align them to business priorities because otherwise they're actually distracting they're creating more work they're derailing from business priorities and that's not okay so it's not like in that situation it's not just like oh this person's a bad developer no but that person needs some coaching and they need a manager that's going to be able to kind of guide them through that so anyway I'm just trying to give you an example of on the surface sometimes things look different okay um and I also kind of share

this if you're like well you don't know you're just a manager or whatever this is at a time in this case where I was a manager and an individual contributor at the same time for 8 years so I was on the ground coding with my team basically Non-Stop for eight years while managing so I got to see stuff from an individual contributor perspective as well as from a manager perspective so there's that now that's the first part I wanted to talk about which is like peer feedback is good but peer feedback is not the deciding factor at some levels like at least at Microsoft when I've had conversations um it's been important and actually a requirement that you do have peer feedback from across the organization but again that's not like just because you have it doesn't mean that you get promotion but it does

mean that it's a requirement it's an expectation for going for that next level I got to move Lanes here but my Lane's going real slow can I get in here my goodness okay um that's part one part two though is like this doesn't seem like a good spot to me unfortunately um I think that it's very peculiar that the manager is uh they're openly talking about it so here's the interesting part they're not completely avoiding it it sounds like yes we are going to talk about this but it'll be next week um I think what I would do and like this is hard to give advice on because uh I have yes while someone wrote in they provided details and thank you for doing that that's very much appre appreciate it um one of the tricky things in in a situation like this is that

I understand this person's frustrated and I think like rightfully so and one one thing that's challenging is that when people write in and I know they're frustrated like I I don't necessarily know if there's a little bit more to the story right because any and I think people need to acknowledge this if you're frustrated or angry about something you're going to have a bias of course we all have bias but when you go to write about it like that might come through and um I just wanted to kind of say that out loud because when I go to give advice here I need to acknowledge like I may be missing part of the story and that makes it kind of challenging um so anyway the the result is probably that I will be more biased in this person's favor so as I'm talking through this

I want to be thinking like is there anything else that I could be trying to like play devil's advocate here um so one thing sounds like this manager is not um completely avoiding the topic but we're not getting into the details and it's been months so 4 months is a long time like I I can't think of a good excuse for that I could think like okay let's imagine we have holidays right and there's vacation there's some downtime there's people out of office I can imagine that like that conversation being delayed by a few weeks maybe up to a month just because of everything that's going on around holidays okay but we're talking 4 months like that's over a quarter that's too long for for no for no movement on this now The Devil's Advocate Part is like there might be some stuff going on

behind the scenes where the manager is like talking with their manager or leadership and they're trying to figure out like budget and and headcount and stuff and they're like hey like don't don't go talking to this person about promotions yet because we're not ready to like we're not ready to do that like there could be some stuff going on like that behind the scenes but in my opinion the manager needs to be more transparent and that could be a little bit tricky because they're like okay I don't want to tell this person no I'm I'm nervous they're going to leave or something bad so I'm just going to keep putting it off but this is one of those things with like difficult conversations like soft skills right we talk about this a lot on this channel um this is something that is very important it

might be again I'm making up this scenario I don't even know if this is happening but if that is the case manager needs to be ready for a difficult conversation to say hey look I'm trying here but we have some other prioritization stuff going on with leadership and as a result it's delaying the decision-making process but I want you to know that I am trying to support you through this uh I think a lot of the time like people can still be frustrated by feedback like that but not knowing or feeling like your manager is not caring is so much worse I think a lot of the time people are like look like I if I can believe that my manager is doing everything in their power to make this happen then like okay like sometimes we have to accept that there are some external

factors but at least I know I'm being supported I trust and respect my manager when you don't have that it's a it's a rough spot so that could be something that's happening but what do we do about this right so what I would recommend to this person I think is like I would bring it up again and I would bring up the fact that it has been months and you don't have to do this in a way that's like attacking right it's not like hey man like you haven't even opened my documents screw you like you don't care like let's not do that because it's not really productive and I don't think that this person would I'm just I'm just saying uh so I would probably try to approach it like you know at the beginning of a oneon-one so that it's not like oh

by the way and like last couple minutes or something try to sneak it in but I would say like hey I know we' been talking about promotion stuff we've been we actually started this conversation but like back in in September October whatever the date happens to be and um I know every every time we seem to have this conversation we talk about a you know a followup or a separate conversation to have it and I would just say like uh are you okay if I schedule a time in the calendar for next week or can we solidify a date for the conversation because it seems that it keeps moving and I just want to make sure that we can have we can get alignment on it and I think and you can find your own words for that like I'm I'm kind of just giving

you a a bit of a layout for that but I think being a little bit assertive about trying to make sure a conversation happens is important but not so assertive that you're like telling the manager like how to do their job if that makes sense kind of like hey look we keep talking about it bring like acknowledge like bring it to their attention like we keep putting it off though so it might be an opportunity for that manager to speak up and say hey yeah like I know and here's a reason why that's happening um there could be an opportunity for that but the point is trying to create a bit of a scenario to to secure a date for a conversation and one of the things I was trying and I I can't remember exactly what I said already but one of the things

I was trying to to frame up there was like maybe it's something that like you can schedule the time right like kind of like get some control back to say like hey like maybe like you know if you're cool with it I'll I'll schedule some time for us next week in your calendar right like give give them some extra time right you're not like it's going to be today or tomorrow but like I'll give you a little bit more time still because it sounds like they haven't even opened the dock so they haven't reviewed but let me give you a little bit more time I will take care of scheduling it right no problem like I'll do it you don't have to worry I'll look for an open time in your calendar and that way it's at least a conversation that's going to happen so

my advice here is trying to number one raise awareness that like that you're feeling like and observing like it's not even a Feeling Anymore it sounds like there's literal fact that uh this is being kind of put off um we're speculating about as to why that's not really a good spot to be in and to get emotional about or whatever so let's not bring up the speculation but it is being put off you're observing that and it's not feeling great so I think that's fair to bring up hey like we've talked about this it's started back you know a few months ago and um I'm just feeling like that conversation keeps getting delayed so um and then that's where you kind of lean into like like I can be proactive here and I can schedule some time for us if you'd like um and that's

kind of what I would recommend right is the visibility of it and then being proactive that you can take some ownership now there's probably some people that are listening to this I'm trying to imagine if this was a post written on Reddit and I bet you some of the top comments would immediately be like get the hell out of there like they don't care um and maybe they don't and maybe that is the right advice maybe the right advice is like you're kind of screwed where you are if you stay there um I always like taking the the approach of like I'm going to try things until I feel it's not worth investing any effort but by saying that like we must acknowledge that looks different for everyone how much effort you want to put in will look different from for you for me and

I think that's important to acknowledge but that's my my uh my thought process right it's like I don't want to say oh I'm frustrated I give up I might say I'm frustrated I'm willing to put in some amount of effort whatever that looks like and beyond that I'd kind of draw the line and say like it's not like I am worth more than that it's not worth my my time and effort so one sec um so for that for this individual maybe maybe they're already there right maybe they're already at the point where they're like it hasn't moved it's time like I'm done with this I've seen other people come and go at higher levels it's time I'm I'm done that might be fine it's not for me to say um personally if I were in this situation I would do kind of what I

said is try to make sure we can have that conversation and then I would at least for myself set some boundaries you don't have to like communicate this and say if you don't promote me I'm leaving um unless you want to do something like that not necessarily what I would recommend but um I would kind of come up with something in your mind and say like like I'm kind of willing to wait this long to see some movement and otherwise like you know time to get out of there um depending on how this person feels like if you're already thinking like I don't feel valued okay and if you're already feeling that way I might say and this isn't terrible advice in general maybe it's time to start interviewing start and hear me out start into does not mean um I'm I'm absolutely ready to

jump ship um because I think that's too late because trying to start interviewing if you haven't been interviewing recently it's probably going to be a little bit slower than you anticipate to apply for jobs and to get interviews based on everything I'm hearing from literally every person that posts about this on the internet um it sounds like it's pretty difficult for people going through uh hunting for jobs so I would say if you're already feeling not valued maybe start exploring does not mean that you have to jump ship right away if you start exploring you might see that there's other opportunities they might pique your interest if you're if you're in a position where you can be getting interviews this kind of puts you in a spot where you're like it's almost like you don't have to put up with if you're like look like

in your in your mind at least I'm not saying that you have to like put this outward but if you can start thinking like I don't have to put up with this anymore like I can go somewhere and at least try to see if I'm valued more there right it might be an opportunity to consider um I do acknowledge that it's a lot of work at least for me it is to go interviewing and applying um so I'm not trying to say like oh it's just it's trivial all that I'm trying to say is that if you're already feeling like I am not valued where I'm working and you've been kind of looking at this for months it might be time to start exploring um so that's one thing the uh the other thing this person brought up was like should I go to their

manager this is an interesting one um I I think it's an interesting option but I think what uh what I would try to C ction against is like and I don't again I don't think this person suggesting it I just want to like say these things out loud is like I would caution against a sort of a setup that feels like you're tattling on them like hey John's boss um did you know that like I've been trying to get promoted and my manager John is been has been putting it off for months and like that seems suspicious doesn't it like uh I wouldn't kind of approach things that way I don't know if this person has skip level one-on ons um and I'm trying to think in in my position if I had someone on my team that was frustrated about not being promoted I

would I would certainly hope that I'm not going months at a time like leading them on like that where where I said hey we'll talk about it and then we don't like that's not a spot I ever want to find myself in but let's say that that's the situation I'm in if if I had someone go to my manager I'm trying to think about what kind of a what would be a constructive conversation and I think it would probably look something like them talking about General career advancement and then and then socializing like hey uh you know I've been I've been aiming for a promotion I think I'm ready uh in fact I've talked to Nick about this and like even Nick was saying that he feels like I'm getting pretty close um and we should start talking about it more like do you have

any thoughts on like on on my you know performance or like uh from your perspective anything that you think I should be working on or like I would just kind of bring it up and I think there's nothing wrong with that again I'm thinking about if this was happening to me as a manager um and then maybe finding a way of bringing up the fact that you've kind of had more concrete conversations could be helpful but I think what what gets kind of dangerous this is just my opinion what gets dangerous from like a like a a working relationship perspective is when you start kind of throwing people under the bus and I say this because going back to what I said a little bit earlier it's easy when we're frustrated to make assumptions about what's going on and we kind of create our own

narrative and then if you're imagining you're in this skip level 101 you're like man I'm pissed off at my manager screw them right like they haven't been they haven't been having that conversation now you go complain to your skip level and you tell them they're not having that conversation me they keep putting it off and then trying to make your manager look bad because you feel like that's going to to help right if I make my manager look bad that's going to put me ahead probably what ends up happening is that it doesn't look great to your skip level manager in some situations the skip level manager might be totally aware right I gave you a bit of an example earlier maybe there's some budget stuff going on some headcount stuff going on in the skip levels like I know exactly why that conversation's been

put off um so it kind of just like it backfires a little bit so I think that there's just ways to have these conversations without trying to to throw people under the bus and sour working relationships even more so that's my opinion on that I'm not saying like I know some people listening to this and there's going to be some people thumbs Downing it because they're like oh you're defending this crappy manager all I'm saying is like I'm defending stuff where I don't have all of the information right it's it's really difficult for me to try and give advice if I don't have everything going on and I I understand this individual won't have all the all the context they probably provided as much as they possibly could but it's I feel like it's my responsibility to try and share some of those other aspects

to think through so maybe I will try summarizing some of what's been discussed here as I get closer to home but um what I would say kind of from the beginning is uh peer feedback is uh at some points depending where you're working becomes a requirement but it is not the thing that gets you the promotion on its own okay so keep that in mind just because your peers observe something does not mean like they're not the ones that promote you unless you work somewhere where that's the case I've never heard of that but I don't think it is so that's one thing the next part that I wanted to say around that was just like be careful with comparison um there's stuff that we don't see going on and sometimes when we do comparison like that it can really it can really be frustrating

I think if you're going to compare yourself to others please try to use that in a way that's motivating like wow that person does so great I admire them I would like to be like that and try to steer away from the comparison that's like well that's not fair Johnny gets to do whatever and like Johnny sucks and like it's not fair that he gets to do it so try to steer away from that cuz it's just going to drive you nuts uh next part was around conversations with the manager I do recommend that this person tries to bring it in a conversation um tries to make sure that they're bringing awareness to their manager like hey like we started talking about this like months ago again don't don't be a jackass about it because it's not going to help anything but um hey we

started talking about this you know however like in whatever month and uh kind of share how you're feeling about it like it feels like it it hasn't been kind of looked off looked at or it's been put off and um and it's factual right you have evidence that this is the case so from there try to see if you can take some ownership and like can I schedule a meeting for this like I'll block out some time in your calendar next week or something I think that's a strategy I would recommend and then at that point I would want you to make sure that you have something in mind for if this is not going to be actioned by some date like what are your thoughts because it's easy to sit there and say like oh like my manager doesn't care I'm going to quit

okay well I don't think there's anything wrong with that if you if your manager actually doesn't care yeah I think you should get out of there but is it is it just talk or like or what are you doing because if you actually think that way and I'm not saying it's wrong to think that way I think you need to at some point say I am not being valued okay so when is that and what are you doing about it because like I said a little bit earlier I would hate for you to get to that breaking point where you're like screw this I I want to walk out and then what and then you go oh maybe I should start looking for other jobs like nah you can do better than that like don't do that right if you're already thinking I am not

valued that's why I was saying it might be worth at least starting to look get a head start doesn't mean that you have to it doesn't mean you're going to have like 10 interviews lined up if and if you happen to that could be amazing you might say great like I am I'm a very capable person and maybe you have really awesome job offers and we have a different conversation at that point my point with this is like please do not wait if you're if you're serious about not feeling valued and it's time to move on um think about like kind of think through what that looks like and work backwards and that's my recommendation on that the final part around talking to the skip level I don't think there's anything wrong with it um I just wouldn't try to frame it as like tattling

because I don't think that that's going to help I'm trying to think in my career I've definitely in my career had to have conversations with skip level managers about like situations that I felt like weren't getting addressed um but I have to do them in ways that's like it's not tattling I it's a funny like word to have to use like tattling on someone but um the reason I'm saying that by the way is like if you feel like you're in a spot where you have to like tattle on someone oh man this guy is walking his dog but he's like right in front of my house so I have to wait um if you're in a spot where you need to be like feeling like you're tattling on someone the advice I have for you is like well why haven't you talked to them

about it you're an adult I'm not looking at the camera by the way I'm like staring you down I'm trying to look in the mirror um but that's like kind of my framing is like if you feel like you need to tattle why the heck didn't you just talk to the person and I know in this case you're like well the man is not having the conversation with me okay so like why didn't you have the conversation with your manager and like bring it up and say like hey look why aren't we having this conversation right that's why I always think like if you feel like you're in a spot where you need to tattle did you actually have the conversation you needed to have and that conversation is not Hey where's my promotion that conversation is hey we've been talking about it and I

think that we really need to start actually putting something into action in terms of a date to have the conversation right um so try not to tattle but if you want to walk through what that looks like from their perspective or if they have any other insights um I think that can be valuable so I hope that helps um a few different angles to look at and uh honestly I hope uh the best for this person I hope that works out where they're at and it's an explainable situation and if it's not then I hope they move on to some other awesome opportunity where they are valued so see you next time take care