3 steps for a FAST promotion to management

How I got from a software engineer to Director in 3 years

Well, a bit more - it took 3 years and 4 months :)

Today, I’m going to share the 3 steps that will get you promoted to a management role, and how I used them in each of the promotions:

1. Be the go-to person for your manager

2. Become known outside your team

3. Ask for the promotion

This might sound like more-of-the-same advice, but I’m going to focus on the HOW:

How to be the go-to person and get assigned the critical things?
How to become visible in the whole organization?
How to ask for that promotion and make sure you’ll be heard?

I’m going to skip the basics and assume you are a senior engineer, who can deliver high-quality code on time, and take ownership of complex tasks.

Developer → Development Team Leader

🌟 How to be the go-to person for your manager

This is the most important step.

For an IC promotion, you need to be the tech go-to person. Grab a domain, and own it.

Jordan Cutler

covered how to do it in this great article.

For a management role, this is not enough. You need to be the person for EVERYTHING (or at least for most things):

1. When your manager is on vacation, who will be left in charge?

2. When there is an urgent production issue, who will be asked to help?

3. When there is a complex task that needs careful implementation, who will take it?

4. When a new employee arrives, who can be trusted to onboard them?

Getting there is easier than you think.

In your next 1:1, try: “I recently thought to myself that I would like to have more experience in solving production incidents. Is it possible that next time you’ll let me handle it?”

I’ve never met a manager who’ll say straight out ‘No’.

Once you get a chance - don’t disappoint. Give 10% more than expected.

• Mentoring a new employee - improve the orientation plan for future ones.

• Being left in charge - write your lessons, gather feedback on your performance, and offer improvements.

• Leading a complex epic - do it perfectly, read this article by

  Jordan Cutler
  (yep, a second appearance - he has some great articles for engineers!).

• Handling a production incident - lead the post-mortem, and ensure the takeaways are implemented.

What worked well for me

As an engineer, I was constantly monitoring the pagerduty channels and jumping on production issues without being asked. This led to getting more responsibility.

👁️ How to become visible outside your team

The ideal way is to work on the most critical things for your organization. There is an easy way to find them - think about what the VP R&D is repeatedly talking about, and ask to do something about it.

For example - if you hear complaints about poor testing culture - become a master in UTs, and help other developers implement them.

There are additional and easier ways too:

1. Be active in Slack channels:

   • See a question from an engineer? Try to help, even if they are not on your team.

   • The marketing team shared a cool video? Write your thoughts on it.

   • A PM shared new release notes? Be supportive!

2. Start to organize things:

   • A GenAI Hackathon for the whole organization.

     Gergely Orosz
     wrote a great article about how to do it.

   • Fun activities for your department - it can be as simple as a joint dinner.

   • Is there an offsite? Volunteer to help organize parts of it.

3. If there are any guilds - join, and actively participate in them.

4. Produce helpful content - share your lessons in Slack channels, or better yet - do a short talk for your whole department.

What worked well for me

This part comes the most natural for me, my challenge is not to overdo it 😅

I organized 2 Hackathons, gave 6-7 talks to the whole R&D, actively participated and attended most backend and DevOps guild meetings, and was constantly active in all Slack channels.

🗣️ How to ask for that promotion

If you don’t ask, it’ll be the same result as in the high school prom… You are going to miss all the fun.

Don’t assume your manager will do it for you. When I was promoted after a little more than a year, another engineer (who had been in the company for 3 years) quit in frustration.

Be respectful, but firm. The 2 extremes won’t work:

• If you are not firm enough, you will be promoted only when it’s convenient for the organization. I recently finished reading ‘Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career’, about a woman who waited for 12 YEARS for a promotion that never came.

• If you are a jerk, saying “Promote me or I’ll quit”, many managers will just let you quit.

Start with: “I thought about it a lot, and I feel ready for the team leader role. What do you think?”

If they feel you still have a way to go - ask for concrete goals and a timeframe! Once you achieve them, you can go to the next stage:

“We both agree that now I’m ready for the team leader’s role. I know there are some organizational constraints, so I would appreciate it if you could check and let me know what is the realistic timeframe for the promotion”.

If the time frame is coming to an end, you have to push: “I understand there are things outside of your control, but I’ve been ready for the next step for a while. Currently, I feel stuck in my career, so please let me know if it won’t work out in the next 3 months, as I’m set on my decision to pursue that role soon”.

What worked well for me

After 8 months on the job, I shared with my manager (and later on the VP R&D) that I want to be a team leader soon. I remember saying something like: “It’s ok if it won’t work out, I know there needs to be an open vacancy. We can always part as friends, no hard feelings”. This is a soft way of saying “Promote me or I’ll go”.

I was patient, and luckily for me, after 6 months it worked out :)

Team Leader → Director of Engineering

🌟 Be the go-to person for your manager

It’s not about production incidents and new epics anymore - you need to level up your game.

• Lead cross-team efforts, or better yet - cross-department ones.

• If your manager mentions something he would like you to take a look at - do it 100% of the time. Make sure you can ALWAYS be counted upon.

• Mentor new team leaders. Be proactive about it - schedule 1:1s, and spend time to really understand their problems. This should be easy for you, as you know the organization much better than they do, and you can provide some great internal politics tips.

What worked well for me

Our offices are split between 2 continents - Product & R&D in one, and Commerical & Ops in another. This results in a big communication gap, and some resentment.

I knew this was important for my manager, so I came up with the idea of doing a ‘Quick Wins sprint’. Stopping the roadmap for 2 weeks, and working in mixed squads (with Sales, CS, dev, QA, and PMs) on short-term annoying things in our product.

👁️ Become visible outside your team

For the next promotion, you need to be visible OUTSIDE the R&D.

• If you have offices in other countries, or customers there - insist on flying out to meet them.

  The 2 work trips I’ve made to our Indiana offices were of HUGE benefit to me. I shared my experiences here (and how I ended up almost crashing a $30K drone)

• Make sure your team is working on the things that are critical to the company. Same tip as before - listen to what the CEO constantly talks about. Focusing solely on doing technical debt and epics coming from your PM won’t get you far.

🗣️ Ask for that promotion

First, you need to nail your performance goals. My first review was after 3 months in the role, with tons of things to improve. A year later, I checked ALL boxes - hired 3 new engineers, took ownership of bigger parts, and reduced the dependency on myself (this one is still WIP).

Then, follow the same steps: mention you want a different role, and the timeframe you are thinking about.

I was transparent with my manager the whole way, without ultimatums. I shared what interests me, and what options I see for myself in the next role.

To gain confidence - I recommend you start interviewing at this stage. The stars really need to align for a promotion to a director’s role, and there is a big chance it won’t work out even if you do everything right. To have the confidence to push for it, it helps to know you have other options.

Final words

You might feel too young, or too inexperienced. I’m 28, and the average age of the directors in my company is ~45. Don’t give a fuck about those things. If you believe you are great at your job, and deserve that promotion - act like it.

Never offer excuses!

Such as “I know I’m a little inexperienced/young for that role, but…”. You are putting thoughts into people’s minds that were never there. You can be a 22-year-old CEO and do a great job - as long as you have self-awareness, receive feedback, and adjust accordingly.

What I enjoyed reading this week

• Stop copying the routines of successful people by

  Orel Zilberman
  . Funny routines you should not try at home :)

• The best article I’ve read on technical debt by

  Itzy Sabo
  . Itzy is one of my favorite tech writers - his writing is sharp, understandable, and unique - give it a try!

• How AI Will Affect Your Career by

  Ryan Peterman

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