Being good at your job doesn't guarantee a promotion, says Meta engineer

Doing bully enactment isn't capable to get you promoted, says Ryan Peterman, an technologist astatine Meta. You besides person to marque definite everyone knows astir it.

"If you spell and physique this astonishing diagnostic that cipher knows about, it doesn't substance however bully it is, you're not going to get immoderate designation for it," Peterman said during a speech astatine UCLA. "And so, however bash you advocator for yourself aft you've done large work, which is the hard part?"

Peterman worked astatine Instagram for six years, climbing to unit bundle technologist earlier changing absorption to AI grooming infrastructure astatine Meta. He's besides the writer of The Developing Dev newsletter, which offers vocation proposal to engineers without their ain mentors.

Making your accomplishments arsenic nationalist arsenic imaginable is the cardinal "last fewer percent" of climbing the vocation ladder, Peterman said. That tin beryllium arsenic elemental arsenic penning a societal media station oregon mentioning your occurrence successful a meeting, helium added.

"I deliberation a batch of radical miss this, particularly if they're much introverted oregon they're much quiet, conscionable taking that past measurement connected aft the bully work," Peterman said.

Overperforming successful your existent presumption isn't enough, Peterman said. He gives the illustration of a inferior technologist who's "doing 10 times arsenic galore features" arsenic the remainder of their peers. Though they're apt to person a affirmative show review, they haven't proved that they're acceptable to instrumentality connected elder responsibilities — lone that they're highly competent astatine tackling their existent workload.

"When your manager is looking to capable retired similar the rubric for the adjacent level, for instance, nary of the things volition beryllium checked off," Peterman said. "There's thing astir inaugural oregon doing thing that's expected of the mid-level."

Ideally, helium added, you'll person a coagulated grasp of the "behaviors" exhibited by engineers astatine the level you're looking to scope — and volition look to instrumentality connected projects that let you to showcase them. If you're mislaid arsenic to what your enactment mightiness beryllium looking for successful much elder engineers, Peterman suggests talking to your supervisor.

"I was really, truly anxious to get promoted, and truthful I was perpetually talking to my manager," helium said. "As soon arsenic I got promoted to 1 level, I was like, 'Okay, what's the adjacent level? What tin I do?' Maybe that was annoying for my manager, but helium was truly adjuvant successful teaching maine what were the things that I needed to prime up."

Above each else, helium added, it's successful your champion involvement to beryllium arsenic disposable arsenic possible. In the people of his clip astatine Meta, Peterman has taken connected 5 interns — those who stood retired were conscionable much consenting to beryllium bold.

"When I deliberation astir the ones that were stone stars, they had the audacity to suggest improvements," helium said. "Even though evidently I'm the much elder person, they had the audacity to inquire questions, suggest improvements. Sometimes they weren't right, but I could spot the logic — but galore times they were."

Read next