Do the work, talk about it
Hey!
Welcome to another week. I hope you had a great weekend. I spent my weekend planning some vacation time with my wife and family.
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Often, I come across managers who want to help their direct reports get more "exposure." They want to help them grow and get promoted (ideally).
Other times, I see engineers wanting to be recognized around the organization. Seeing this, I sometimes pull the people into meetings, ask them to present something or send them their way to discuss a specific topic.
And that's fine, but there are only so many of these forums to discuss it.
Keep track of your accomplishments
I've read about this "brag document" to help people remember their accomplishments throughout the year, which helps communicate them to managers or peer reviews during review season.
In practice, this document helps with giving us a "third person" view of the work we're doing.
Understand the themes
Have I been focusing mainly on security? On API design?
I've told mentees to have this document handy or start one to help them see their accomplishments in the context of quarters or the year. This will help them understand the "themes" of their work, which areas they naturally gravitate towards, or let them know where they've been investing more time, even if they don't precisely enjoy it.
Some people notice that they want to get promoted, but their tasks are not considered for promotion.
Align expectations
What do I do if I "only" work on my tickets, but I'm not stretching myself beyond that?
It's important to align expectations with your manager, and if your goal is to get promoted, you should understand what is expected at the next level. While avoiding "non-promotable" work might be impossible, you should intentionally take (or not accept) these tasks and work towards the next level.
But if you're stretching yourself beyond the current scope of your title, then you should be vocal about this work!
Other benefits
But what if you're not looking for a promotion but want to be visible across the organization?
That's one of the benefits of talking about your work and accomplishments. Being visible at work brings other benefits. Among them:
- New opportunities: you might be the first option for projects
- Influence: Having influence will allow you to build leverage across the organization, which is a helpful thing for our leadership path
- Included in more rooms: you're invited to give your point of view on new or complex projects.
Be Responsible
Remember that becoming visible and talking about your work means that you're considered one of the people inside the organization who deliver important work or work at a higher level.
As with anyone who gains more recognition, they implicitly become a role model of what the organization rewards; also, you'll have more pressure to keep your outcomes consistent.
Your turn!
Have you thought about how people outside your team view your work? Are you top of mind for specific topics or essential projects? Let me know by replying to this email!
Happy coding!
Things I discovered in the past week
- How to peacefully grow your service talks about several learnings from work experience about growing services at scale. Things to look out for when starting that will pay immensely down the line.
- Why Emma Chamberlain Quit YouTube, Again. It is a video about content creator burnout, which has made me think about what sustainable content creation is.
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