A promotion means you are getting a different job, typically leadership, which means working with people more with machines. If you are better with machines than you are with people, do you really want that? does your employer really wants that? If you are twice as fast and twice as good as others doing some job, and if you like that job, what you want is double pay, not a promotion to a position you won't be as good at.
That's Peter's principle, and your managers have heard about it too.
Probably. Most managers would also argue that because you're so great with machines, you'll surely be even greater at managing others who are supposed to be great with machines. Does that make sense? No. Do managers and executives think like this anyways? Yes.
I'm sure most managers and executives on HN though doesn't think like that, surely are the exception. But out in the wild world, people truly get promoted mostly on whims and personal relationships without thinking "are they better with machines than people perhaps?", because that's the easy way. People also feel excluded if they aren't considered for promotions, even if the promotion in question wouldn't make sense.
I'd say the opposite is true. In modern management theory, the value of domain knowledge for managers is severely undervalued.
We had one of these guys working with us at one point, awesome guy: friendly, humble and good at everything he does, including partying! We only knew he was "special" much later, when he left us to continue his journey.
I have many bad things to say about this company, but this is not it: hiring people who are actually good, making them understand the work the company does by practicing, and thinking long term, hats off.
But back to the subject, even though the guy did actual productive work with us, and did it competently, he wasn't destined to be an expert, he was destined to be a manager and he was only here to get enough domain knowledge for that job. This is not the same path as a technical expert who will keep doing the same job, but better.
Sure, but you can always pick that up as you learn how things work. It's a bit harder to do that in engineering as it requires years of experience with your craft.
Just like a manager just starting out isn't gonna have the right intuition and hunches until some years of experience, you can't just "pick that up", that is the expertise, unlike domain knowledge.
Like sure eventually the person will learn the job but only after a significant cost in bad decisions.
Just to clarify just in case; We're talking about domain knowledge here, not management knowledge, I'm not entirely clear how that maps to your example, as you're talking about any general experience I suppose? I'm not saying we should put people without experience into management positions, if that's the misreading you did.
We've all met many brilliant engineers with the social skills of a lettuce. The idea they cannot get a raise in salary unless promoted to management is just daft.
It appears the problem is many managers regard underlings getting paid more than them as unhealthy; despite the fact the job descriptions are vastly different.
Yeah, I never understood this. As a manager I've always strived to earn less than those I help do their job (meaning pushing their salary up whenever I could), they're doing all the heavy lifting and I'm just along for the ride trying to unblock them and coordinate stuff. Not sure why there are managers who think they should earn more than the people doing the grunt-work, but then again, the world is filled with people who think they're more important than they are.
Though one should consider that eventually (additional) legal responsibilities come into play, that need to be worth something as well.
I'm sure there are outliers, but this seems to be the norm.
As such, many want a raise, but no-one want to manage peoples and have responsibilities that involve human factor (state otherwise, it is easier to be sure about the result of your own work than the work of your whole team). That’s the reason why it is easier to ask for a raise as a manager than a single coder.
All this sort of thing was true when I went to management college, last century, and it was well known to my line management, and yet, nevertheless, all the observations were still true because in effect it's an observation about human nature. It would be guidance if people were guided by it, but they aren't.
"I know that's a bad idea, but I'll do it anyway" counts for "We should fire all the people whose performance review didn't rate them above average" just like "I only had a couple glasses of wine, I'm fine to drive".
I guess this article is for the management track?
I think it is a cultural thing.
To make it simple binary, I think there are 2 kinds of promotions:
A. the kind where you pretty much continue doing what you were doing before, but with a nicer title and more money
B. the kind where the new role will put you into a whole new situation, which may or may not be a good fit for you
People always assume it'll be like 1., but there are certain career inflection points where this is not true. Approximating these in 3 minutes of typing:
1. Going from junior IC levels (where others work extra hard to support you, and are doing much of the work with you, for you) to mid IC levels.
2. Going from IC to becoming a manager.
3. Going to executive level.
4. Going to board-level executive level.
Note: I'm putting aside the handful of tech companies where people can stay on the technical track and still get ahead; at most companies you end up going into management, if for no other reason to avoid an incompetent outside hire to end up as your boss..
In the above list, 1. is of course desirable and unavoidable, but the rest should be thought over hard, for many months, and should be considered a major life decision.
Eg. recently I'v been promoted from Sr. Director (a non-executive management role) to VP (an executive manager role) — I didn't ask for it, it was a result of a re-org — and it's been super tough. Completely new rules, new crowd, new worries, but with all the worries of my old job..
As a people manager I constantly have staff ICs telling me they want to get promoted to become a Director, and I always tell them — from the bottom of my heart — enjoy the "simple life" of IC-ship while you can, once you go over to management [at any bigco], things will be much less fun. Because, if coding and building things is fun for you, then managing PIPs, procurements, vendor engagements, and corporate politics in general will not be fun.
Apparently it is quite hard to pass the message that not everyone has a lifetime goal to land in management, which is a quite hard thing to fight against because in many countries, as computing is seen as yet another office job unlike the SV glamour of FAANGs, where you only succeed in life by becoming a manager.
If it pays more money - yes. Even if it does not, you can leverage position and find a different job with said new position that does pay more money.
Currently, there are a lot of things in my life (old house, old cars, etc) that more money will simply remove from being a headache in my life.
200k to 250k is a different story.
It is all relative, but in general vast majority of people would be in first example.
But that point—at least in terms of its dollar value—keeps rising, and these days it's out of reach of far too many non-managers.
Frankly, this smells a lot like a continuation of the old feudal mindset, where the people who tell other people what to do are considered to be more worthy, more valuable, better people, than the people who just...make things with their hands.
There's really no inherent reason why the person who is coordinating my team should be considered to be more valuable than me. And there's certainly no reason why the organization should consider me qualified for that position just because I do this one really well: management is a different skillset, that one doesn't naturally gain just by doing a non-management job really well. (And I can say this with some certainty, because I have seen both very good and very bad managers, and the difference is night and day. Not just on the morale of the people they're managing, but in the results of what they create.)
What I've seen more of is: people get promoted because they already do the job at the higher level, or close to it
That's exactly how it works in my company (small org). They clearly state that the person needs to be doing "the needful" for around a year before being officially promoted to the position.
Genuinely curious - is that not thow it usually works?
He said that you get a promotion for one of two reasons:
(a) the company is afraid that, without the promotion, you'll leave; or
(b) the company wants you to accomplish some task, and believes that you will be better able to do it if granted additional political power.
This post seems to agree well with that option (b). It advises that you make the case for your own promotion based on two prongs:
(1) the success of my project is important to the business;
(2) my project is more likely to succeed if I am promoted.
(The post also throws full support to option (a).)
It's far, far too easy for an organization that operates this way to abuse it: oh, you want to be promoted to Assistant Director? Here are all the tasks of Assistant Director; better get doing them for a while and prove to us you can do the job!
...Oh, it's been a year and you want the promotion? Sorry! We just hired a new Assistant Director. Time to train your new boss, because we already know you're great at the job! (What? Oh, yes; that is the Director's nephew, how good of you to spot that! That's why we knew he'd be a great fit.)
> Genuinely curious - is that not thow it usually works?
IME, it's far more common for one of two setups to be in place:
a) If you want a promotion, you have to prove that you've been doing the job you're in very well over a longer period of time—and, in many cases, if you fail to achieve a promotion after a certain length of time, you're fired. (The "Up or Out" philosophy.) In some cases, you don't even explicitly apply for a promotion; if you do well enough in your performance reviews over time, you're just given the promotion, whether you want it or not.
b) If you want a promotion—too bad. We don't promote from within. Well, we don't outright say that. Some people can get promoted from within—they just have to kiss the right asses the right way at the right times. But we'll absolutely expect you to take on the work of your colleagues who leave because the work environment sucks. And your boss, when they leave. But without extra pay.
Otherwise you're the shmuck who does expensive work cheaper. If you start making trouble and ask for more money you're better off being replaced with another ambitious shmuck who's willing to work cheap without causing trouble.
So I stop giving it any attention. Promote me if you want, but otherwise I'm just going to jump ship to a place that recognizes my talent.
You can be the most impactful person going but if you are an asshole then you won't get promoted.
Edit: maybe I should say - an asshole to management, or bring up difficult things, etc.
I guess it will sound like a nitpick, but to me it matters a lot:
They promote those they believe have the highest potential to bring value.
The whole thing is that the person who promotes you is a human in a dominant position. You can't change their mind about what they believe is a good reason to promote an employee, because they are in a position to feel superior.
If you want a promotion, you have to do whatever those with that power want to see in order to give you a promotion. If that involves bringing doughnuts every Monday morning, you have to do it.
Luckily, cargo cult means that those people probably all read the same kind of books, so a valid proxy may be to just read those books and try to fit in this completely arbitrary world. Coaches are people who decided that instead of reading those books to try and get a promotion themselves, they would just make a business out of reading those books and selling you that knowledge.
Thank you for writing that! That would have been my first comment as well. Due to the organizational hierarchy, there is a standard assumption that the company or the decision-makers within the company are magically capable of making objective assessments and decisions. Of course, this is not the case. But in the style of corporate language, there is often a strategic concealment of the fact that in every functional role, even at the very top, individuals work and make subjective decisions (hopefully competently, hopefully to the best of their knowledge and belief, but nonetheless always subjectively).
Not pissing other people off is an important skill, but at higher levels so is being able to make the right decision even if it's not very popular.
Being able to do both simultaneously is gold dust.
As software developers we often see the raw data of this. The science often even isn't that hard based on the software you are asked to write how almost none of the "objective" metrics are truly "fair".
Metrics aren't an escape from subjectivity, they just smoke screen it. Companies love "rich get richer" lotteries and easily confuse that for "objective" or "fair".
Even if you take the completely cynical view that bosses are out for themselves - then if after promotion you stay in their team, they are going to what to manage promotions in a way that makes them look good.
Now if what makes them look good is not related to improved impact/output then I refer you to by previous advice about getting a promotion by leaving, but most of the time it is - are you helping them hit their( the teams ) goals?
Personal performance and achievements are usually secondary.
YMMV
My experience as a developer, in the 80s and most of the 90s, there was a benefit to a promotion. Since about 2000, promotions means:
1. A fancier title (who cares).
2. No Salary Raise, a big issue for me and what I miss the most.
3. More responsibility.
Why bother push for a promotion these days ?
So glad I don't have to deal with any of that crap anymore.
I work in quantitative finance, it's a fairly complicated field. I use Claude Code myself to code faster, but at the end of the day, the guys I work for need the numbers to be correct, and they still need people to make sure that everything is right.