In 2023, in an over-cooled conference room, I received the happy news that I was promoted to Staff Data Scientist. Next to me, a colleague turned a discomfited face. Later that day, he confessed that he was very disappointed he was not promoted as well. “Did you ask for it?” I asked. “No”, he answered, confused. In his previous job, “It just happened”.

In my view, this is a classic case of career mismanagement. Too often, I have heard sentiments such as “your manager should know that you did a great job”. At a recent “women in engineering” event, a young woman engineer asked: “Why isn’t my manager telling me about what is possible for my career?” In a for-profit organization, the optimal behavior for the company is to employ workers at the lowest pay that the worker is willing to accept. So there is no incentive for a manager to promote you or give you a raise unless you ask for it. Furthermore, no matter what companies say, raises and promotions are a zero-sum game. If your colleague asks for it, and you don’t, who do you think your manager will advocate for?

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that women make up only 27% of tech workers and that 50% of them leave the tech industry before they are 35. Therefore, I am directing this guide to young and younger women in software engineering in individual contributor roles. I hope that by sharing what I have learned over the past 15 years, I might help some of you stay a little longer!

So, are you ready?!

O Captain! My Captain!

Laura Bélavoir, Engineering Manager extraordinaire, once said to me: “Your career is a boat, and you are the captain 🚣‍♀️”. While there are many factors that affect how well you can sail your boat (weather/the economy, tide/how your company is doing, fish/your industry), your seawomanship is crucial to your own success. Concretely, what does that mean to be a good captain?

Track 👏 Your 👏 Performance 👏

As any good captain, you should keep a log that tracks your performance. A concrete way to track your performance is to use a spreadsheet 🤓. A performance is measured relative to goals. Crucially, your goals must be aligned with the company and/or your team’s goals, and be discussed and agreed upon with your manager within the first three months of you joining a new role. Each goal (something that takes 6-12 months) is divided in concrete sub-goals, such as a large deliverable (something that would take 3-6 months). Each sub-goal has a set of metrics (which can be SMART, but not always). Your performance tracker spreadsheet should be shared with your direct manager, and you should check-in on it regularly to make sure it is still aligned with the roadmap and your team’s objectives. If you have weekly meetings with your manager (and you should), then a good target should be every 6 weeks or so.

Your table may look like this:

Each month, track milestones and progress toward each goal and sub-goals. Add links to the code repository you contributed to, the documentation you wrote, the slides you made, the report you presented. Track everything. Feeling shy? No one is watching, so who are you hiding from?

Your company may also have an appreciation platform, on which people may send you a word of appreciation, sometimes with a small monetary prize. At Credit Suisse, you could send a “gold bar”, at Okta it’s “Oktappreciate Points”, and IBM has “Bleu Points”. Collect this feedback from people and add it to your spreadsheet.

Talk about your performance early and often

A good captain does not wait the end of the fishing season to go to port and sell the fish! Do not wait until your yearly review to discuss your performance with your manager. Speak of it early, and speak of it often.

How to Become an Admiral

Let’s discuss promotions (You could also apply the same method for raises). Everything I describe below mostly applies to large corporations. I don’t have experience in start-ups and from what I hear, it’s pretty free-form, for better or for worse. In any case, preparation is key.

Demonstrate the N+1

In most large corporations, a promotion is given to someone who is “already performing at that level”. Your company probably has a career ladder for software engineers that lays out the scope of skills and responsibilities from a junior to a distinguished engineer. If you are at level N, look at the level N+1, and use the ladder’s description of skills and responsibilities to calibrate your performance tracker. For instance, if it says “A N+1 software engineer drives a feature implementation from start to finish”, that should be a goal or sub-goal in your tracker.

👏 Ask 👏

For the love of all that is Holy, ASK. FOR. IT. Don’t be like my discomfited colleague! ASK. FOR. IT. In a capitalist economy, for-profit companies want to employ you for the least amount of money you are willing to accept. ASK. FOR. IT. It is not in their interest to promote you or give you a raise unless you ask for it. ASK. FOR. IT. I can’t repeat it enough, raises and promotions are a zero-sum game (They might claim it’s not, but who has infinite money to promote everyone? 😏). If your colleague asks for it, and you don’t, who do you think your manager will advocate for? ASK. FOR. IT. 📢📢📢📢

When to ask?

Timing is very important.⏱️ Most large corporations have yearly promotion cycles, so things are decided months before the news is actually given. Promotions and raises are often decided at the same time than next year’s budget. Educate yourself about your company’s specific promotion and raise cycles, and determine when to talk with your manager about it. If you are ready to present your case, you want to ask a few months out from when managers are asked to submit paperwork and reviews about promotions and raises. It goes back to talking about your goal and performance early and often. If you do talk about it early and often, your manager and you should have had plenty of time to discuss the cycle and paperwork.

How to ask for it?

An easy way to verbalize your interest in a promotion is to define it as a goal to your manager. “I want to align my goals and performance tracker with the n+1 level, I’m interested in demonstrating that I can perform at that level. Can you tell me what other steps I should take to apply for that promotion?”.

Be your best advocate

Whether you are targeting a promotion or a big raise this year or the next, your yearly reviews will play a role in supporting your application. When your yearly review comes around, use your performance tracker to substantiate the amazing work you have done, and write beyond it. It is not a simple list of tasks completed or artefacts created. It is the compelling story of consistent delivery, colleagues’ appreciation, and concretely, your own touch on your role. Did you get involved with an ERG? Did you complete a non-mandatory training? Did you mentor someone? Did you seek mentorship? What did you do that was at the N+1 level? A “Meet expectation” rating means you did what you were expected to do. You did your job. Good job!

If you are targeting a rating above that - and it is often required for promotions - you have to write your review in a way that does yourself justice. In most large corporations, your manager will refer to the review you wrote and your performance tracker, to write their own essay about your rating/raise/promotion. It is your responsibility to do yourself justice. Don’t be shy. Your economic outcome depends on it! 💸

However, many companies give out ratings “on a curve”, meaning that your manager has only so many “above expectation” to give, many might not even be allowed to give “exceptional”.

It’s not you. It’s them.

To get promoted, you need three things:

• You need to be a competent captain, and the admiralty needs to know about it (Did you track your performance and communicated it effectively?)
• There needs to be space in the port for your boat (Does your team/company has space for someone at that level/title?)
• Is the tide going up or down? (Is the company willing to spend the money?)

It is very frustrating to realize that despite all of your hard work, only one of those points is dependent on you. So don’t take it too personally if you did everything right and you didn’t get what you wanted.

From an Economic theory point of view, if the company does not promote you/give you a raise despite an excellent performance, they are making a bet. They are betting that even though you have demonstrated a higher level of competence, you will continue to work for them for the same amount of money. It is your responsibility as captain of your own boat to decide whether you accept this bargain or not. If you decide to stay, the company gets a raise (higher quality employee for the same amount of money). Most companies function that way. That’s why it is not surprising that most people only obtain raises or promotion by changing jobs.

In conclusion, never forget that you are the captain even if your success may still be very random. As you gain experience, you are likely to develop a better sense of your priorities and what is best for you, whether it is economic outcome, job responsibilities, healthy work environment, work-life balance, the company’s mission, etc.

I will leave you with my favorite career advice, and wish you best of luck!