Want to get promoted? Understand how the rules change
People in Big American Tech (BAT) companies worry a lot about promotions. I had one employee say that his primary career goal was not to fall behind his peers from business school. A manager friend said she had an employee who simply refused to work on obscure projects that wouldn’t earn peer kudos. Some say it’s due to the concentration of high-performing, frequently-rewarded employees. Some say it’s a Millennial or Gen Z phenomenon. In my industry, video games, we’re a bunch of gamers who just want to know the rules and then beat the level. Whatever the reason, it seems everyone is dissatisfied with the rate at which their career is progressing.
BAT companies try to address this by having structured job descriptions and level guidelines to help employees understand what it takes to get promoted. For example, you may have a job described as “Software Development Engineer II” (SDE II) with a description of what you should be able to do at SDE II. And you can look up what it takes to be an SDE III. If you can demonstrate consistent performance at the SDE III level, you should expect a promotion.
The numbering systems are different at each BAT. Some, like Amazon, make employee levels public so you can look up anyone in the company and see what level they are. Others, like Microsoft, do not disclose levels but try to standardize job titles that correspond to levels, so you can kind of figure it out (e.g. “Group Program Manager” is in the L64 range). Regardless of structure, all these numbered leveling systems roughly cover three career stages: Early, Mid, and Executive. “Early” refers to the first 6–8 years of your working career. Mid is around years 8–15, and then Executive can hit anywhere from years 10 and beyond (rough approximations, but close enough for the point of this article).
In the Early stage, promotions can come almost every year. It feels like a continuation of college, where you finish a year of school and you “graduate” to the next level: Freshman-to-Sophomore, SDEI-to-SDEII, level 60-to-61, etc. Good performers will roll through these promotions relatively predictably so promotion anxiety is low. Since promotions are based largely on the quality of your work and contribution, i.e. things you control, focus on doing a great job and promotions will come at a regular pace. In the Early stage, think of promotions as 90% dependent on you and 10% outside your control.
In the Mid stage, things start to slow down. Promotions take 2–3 years on average and experienced professionals start to get frustrated. Mid stage professionals are independently competent, they can do roles without direct supervision and guidance, they start to become people managers and leaders. In the Mid stage, you will feel like you are fully functioning and contributing more to the organization than is being recognized. One reason it feels like you are not being recognized or promoted fast enough is that the criteria for promotions changed but no one told you. Coming from the Early career stage, you are used to frequent promotions and lots of kudos for doing your job well. You expect to continue to do your job well and get promoted. But you are in the Mid stage now and the promotion criteria is no longer 90% dependent your performance. It’s about your potential to become Executive.
And Mid stage promotions also slow down because more people are involved in deciding whether you have Executive potential or not. In the Early stage, it was just your manager and HR. Now, it’s your manager, HR, and probably a group of more senior folks who need to approve your promotion. And they all ask, “Can we imagine this person becoming an Executive one day?” The criteria is whether the company should bet on you over one of your peers for the long term. If you are in the Mid stage of your career, promotion is 50% dependent on your performance and 50% on how well you convince managers above you (directly and horizontally) that you have “what it takes.” So you control maybe 50% of the equation.
Promotion to an Executive role is almost always based on the needs of the company and a spot being open. You wouldn’t be considered if you weren’t already competent and have the potential to be an Executive, so those things are assumed and don’t determine your promotion. But your accomplishments don’t get you the job, it is simply whether you fill a need for the company at that specific time in the company’s life cycle. This is frustrating because you just put in all the effort to prove to management that you have the potential to be an Executive. And now you find out that there may never be a position open to you regardless of whether you are qualified. So at the Executive level, you need to play like an independent contractor: network, play the field, write articles, build your brand. Your goal is to find the right fit at the right company at the right time. Chances of getting promoted are 30% you and 70% outside your control.
Like all growth paths, what got you to your current position is not what will get you to the next one. And just because decisions are outside your control does not mean you cannot “make your own luck.” It’s just a lot less predictable. And it helps to understand the rules of the game as they change around you because no one will tell you ahead of time.
