My New Manager Keeps Moving The Targets For Promotions!

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, we are going to a submitted question on Instagram and this person was asking about a team that they're on that they've just joined and uh they're talking with a colleague that's on that team and this is really about promotion. So the manager apparently has uh told this you know other colleague that they're talking to who is a high performer that um you know promotions kind of coming but then it seems like they're uh raising the bar so to speak when when they're meeting those expectations apparently and then um the manager's like sort of asking for more things or kind of like the way we would say it is like dangling the carrot on the stick so to And um this person's asking if that's a red flag. The other thing they called out is that there seems to be a bit of like a a traffic jam for promotions.

And so their question is really like, hey, like should I get out of here? Is this a red flag to have um what seems to be a situation where people can't get uh promoted? Um so I think this is a really good one to talk through. I really uh you know, thankful for someone for submitting this. Um, and you know, the the short answer with all this is like it depends and we don't have the full picture. So, um, you know, if if all this is 100% true and accurate, I would say like short version of this entire video is like, yeah, that might not be a great place for growth career-wise in terms of what's on paper. Um, however, like levels and stuff are not actually everything. And I just wanted to start by giving you an example of what I mean by this. Okay.

So, um I know that like I now work at Microsoft. So, I'm working in big tech. I've been doing this now for like 5 and a half years. And there is a hyper focus on on levels promotion um to an extent like I've never never seen this um kind of thing. And I I don't think that it's necessarily like a new thing. I just think that it's like uh very much like a big tech kind of thing. Everything uh is sort of structured around your level and your promotion. And it's uh it's pretty wild. And my my take on this really is like I don't think that it's necessarily and people might disagree with this. I don't think it's done on purpose from like you know Microsoft or other companies like Amazon, Facebook, whatever. I don't think that they set things up like this because I actually think it's counterproductive uh for an effective company.

And the reason I say this is that when when there's so much focus on like my promotion, me me what what does that create, right? It creates like silos for people where you are going to be hyperfocused on whatever you need to do for you to get promoted. And that means that there's it's almost like you have to you have to re-emphasize like no we work in teams like you need to show that like that the company values um like teamwork and working together on things not just you trying to you know ship the entire world on your own. But that's it's almost like intrinsically not built into how we look at promotions in big tech. It's really bizarre. Um, so before I worked at Microsoft, I like I I have a YouTube video of this. Uh, I was I was so hopeful it was going to get more views when I put it together because I thought it was like pretty good storytelling, but apparently not.

Um, and so I talk about like what it was like working at a startup before going to Microsoft and like I never in 8 years I never officially had a promotion. The first promotion I had in my 13 plus years uh in software engineering the the first official promotion I've ever had was this past summer. Official promotion. Okay. So, um, my title has changed. I've had compensation increases and stuff like that, but I have never been sat down in a conversation and been like, "Hey, we're giving you a promotion." That's never happened until this past summer. That's 13 years, right? So, the context here is like at a startup like we we didn't really even have different levels. like we introduced a senior developer title and like we didn't want to go introduce a bunch more because we needed to figure out what we were doing.

It's really difficult to kind of backtrack if you make titles and levels and you're like actually we got to undo this. So, we were moving very slowly through doing it. Um, but the side effect for me at least was like I actually never gave a about what my title was ever. It didn't it made no sense to me. like why why does it matter? And the difference was in my opinion at least was like I was very empowered to go drive change right to take on responsibilities to go get done. So like it it didn't matter. And I think ultimately even for me now like that's really what I value. But I can say that from going from a small company into big tech, it's now forced me to look at like the way that I am valued happens to be based on my level. I really don't love that and I can feel like that change happening to me and I don't love it.

So to bring it back to this person's question, right, like is that a red flag? Should I leave? I'm like my my thought is like like what truly truly what are you after? And there's no right or wrong reason here, right? I I do think that it's important that you feel that you're going into into your career, your place of work, and feeling like you are being compensated in a way that that feels like you are valued. And if that to you, let's pass this person. Um, we're not going to merge onto the highway going uh 20 mph. Sorry. Um, if that to you feels like like title changes, level increases, and stuff like that, then so be it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And I personally think that in order to be depending on how you want to move around in your career, I think that that's actually important to have at least some element of that, right?

Could you imagine for me being 8 years at a company, not actually having a promotion? Um, fortunately for me, it was a management position that I was in almost from the beginning. That was the closest thing to an official promotion for me, but it wasn't it was just a role change like it's not it's what it was. Um so to go from that to Microsoft at a principal level I had eight like basically eight years of managing just under eight years of managing people and so like to come in at principal level as a manager that's what made sense but um the focus was never on that. I I do think that to move around between companies, it makes it really difficult if you're like if you've been in the industry for 3 5 7 10 years, whatever, and you're like, "Yes, my title is still just developer, like you know, to not have on your resume like senior engineer or, you know, SE2 or whatever.

Um, it makes it difficult for people to go, how do we calibrate this person? Now, I say that, but there's multiple stages, right? So, if someone's interviewing you and you have good interviewers and they can they can probably do a decent job assessing your skills, I still think interviews uh are really difficult to have a good one. that um you know on a resume when someone's screening if there if you're applying for you know a senior plus role and none of your job titles have ever said anything about that it's kind of tricky right people are going to have to to really read into your resume make sure that they're reading the impact that you've had and kind of infer that you've had that kind of uh significance of impact so I do think that having some amount of that is important. However, that does not mean that you can't grow, get experience, uh be well compensated, right?

So, I'm just trying to show you both sides of this. Uh the reality is I would say if I had to make up stats cuz I don't have data, I would say a majority of the time when you have situations where it feels like, you know, promotions are being dangled in front of people and they're not actually being received, like that's probably a red flag in general. But I would genuinely ask yourself, you know, this person's talking to their colleague, like is that colleague getting good responsibilities? Like is that increasing for them? Are they getting increasingly wider scope of impact? Uh more challenging tasks, things like that. If that's the case, that might be a great opportunity for you still. You might want to set a time limit on that.

But if you're looking at like your skill set, your experiences and going, "Hey, I have an opportunity here to do some awesome like that might be great and you could build like genuinely build up the skills and experiences and that way when it's time to go apply somewhere else because you're not getting promoted there, you know, you might I'm just making this up. Uh, you know, you're an SE2 and you're going for a senior engineering position. You might not have been given the senior engineer position where you're at because of this uh sort of backlog of uh promotions, but on your resume, you'd have all this awesome experience. And it's not just to pat a resume, like genuine experience where you feel proud of it, right? The ideal situation is that you have all of those things, right? You have awesome work that you're interested in that's really impactful that's truly at your level or just beyond to challenge you, right?

You want all those things. You want good compensation so you feel valued, right? And then what was the other thing I wanted to say? Oh, then your your levels, right? Like and that's actually increasing over time. Like you want all of those ingredients ideally, right? But different people may prioritize those differently. And that's why like I will very confidently say that especially earlier in my career I 100% focus on well I was very fortunate to be in a place that was uh compensating me based on the impact I was having. So that was one of the ingredients checked off in terms of doing like real meaningful work that was checked off. Was I interested in it? Yes. And was it uh sort of like level appropriate or challenging like yes. Yes it was.

we were solving all sorts of interesting problems and by the end I had multiple teams that I was managing right so as a manager that was kind of growing uh growing out as well and we were at the point where we were discussing like we didn't have the the roles defined yet cuz that was one of the company growing pains but like what is a director position so those are all good ingredients right that's uh what we're after but it's not an immediate red like see where we're at here. Um I do think that you know one of the tricky things when we're talking to people about their promotions and stuff. Uh and I I'm kind of I realize as a manager like I'm going to be very biased and so I'm trying to call that out as I talk through this. Uh I think talking with people on the team can be helpful so you can understand and get more perspective.

I think I always think more perspective is beneficial, but more perspective does not necessarily mean um like more truth. And I say that not to suggest this person's being lied to, but like there's an opportunity here for um for pieces to be left out or uh you interpreting things differently. So I think more perspective is helpful but we have to you know pull apart the pieces that are that are truth our fact and form our own understanding based on the data we have. Um that's my general way of saying that. So what could be happening with this person is that they've had like this is the the colleague that they're talking to that is a high performer. Um it could very well be that uh they have different expectations with their manager, right? They think that they're doing the right things um and it's actually between them and their manager and their maybe their manager is doing a a job at communicating those expectations properly.

Right? Again, statistically speaking, if I could make up my own stats here, I feel like that's probably uh not the most likely thing. Right. Um especially if this person's kind of identifying that there seems to be a bit of congestion with promotions. Um could be something else going on, but we don't know, right? We we have in this person's case, they have one data point and that person that they're talking to might might be frustrated about it. Right? So to to give you another example, I have absolutely worked with employees that I feel are very high performing, okay, that I've managed and uh when it comes to promotions and stuff, I've had times where um you know, one example without going into specifics of course is like uh someone that I think anyone on the team would look at and go, "Wow, like they're they're awesome.

Like I want to emulate their behavior." Uh, but the level that they're at is like I can put them up for promotion because I think they're ready and the feedback that comes back because remember if you've watched my other videos uh it's uh sort of necessary but not sufficient for me to put someone up for promotion. necessary because I have to be the one to at least start it. But I need my managers buy in, my skip level managers buy in and then uh depending on the level of this person like they're that my skip levels peers buy in. Right? So it's necessary but not sufficient. Now that might be the case for this person. We don't know, right? where their manager is like, "Look, I am trying and I am having the the rewards and uh performance and uh promotion conversations on your behalf, but here's the feedback or whatever else." Right?

It it could very well be things outside of this manager's control and they are trying because they do believe this person's ready. We don't we don't know that. I again I'm not Is this the most likely scenario? Probably not. That's why it's really tricky to answer questions like this like objectively. We I can't, right? So, I'm trying to give you sort of ammunition to think about these things, perspective to think about these things, and then make your own informed decisions. So, as we get closer to CrossFit here, um some things that come to mind are like kind of sit back and reflect on like what what are you after? And there's no wrong answer here because if truly if you're like I need to have a sort of like guarantee is probably too strong of a word, but I need to have a lot more confidence in my uh my level increasing promotion path and stuff like that.

If that's something that you really need to have, this this might be um you know, might be a red flag. I would say I would not run away from it until you've talked to your manager about what that looks like. Um, and then I don't know, like depending on your your willingness, like give them give them a chance to try and prove that by working with you. Uh, set a timeline on it. And if you're like in your mind, if that's not being met, okay, like time to go. I don't think that anywhere you go, you're going to have a guarantee on promotions. That's why I'm trying to to temper uh the expectations here. But um you know, you're an adult. You can make um sort of a decision based on your comfort level on that. One sec. Um so I, you know, I would personally give that manager a shot.

Have the conversation more specifically about it because it's your situation, not your colleagueu's situation. Set a timeline on it. Um if your if your hyperfocus is not on what level you have but the uh sort of responsibilities, accountability, um the types of projects, like all that kind of stuff, like maybe that's more of a priority. So figure that out for you, right? Is that something where you feel like you are getting those chances? What about your compensation? Does that feel like is that fair? Does that feel like it's good? or if you're looking at all of these things going, I feel like I'm not going to get promoted. The work's kind of meh and the pay is pretty If if it feels like that, then I would say, yeah, I mean, start start hunting around. Um, but I I think that at the end of the day, you kind of have to look at what things that you're interested in, right?

It's like for me right now, taking a pay cut would not be something I'm interested in. At different stages of my career, absolutely that could be the case. But right this moment, no. So I wouldn't leave to go work somewhere for less at this point. Like if someone was going to give me a director position but cut my my compensation in half, like I simply cannot. And I'm at CrossFit here and I'm going to be late, so I'm going to park my car. Thank you so much for watching. If you have questions, leave them below in the comments. Otherwise, send them in to code.com. And I'll talk to you guys later. See you.