It is promotion season again. I just spent the past month reviewing hundreds of promo packages from the engineering department, in addition to conducting more than 50 one-on-one conversations with my team on career growth. I have realized that many people care more about the prospect of a promotion than the growth itself. It is a subtle psychological difference but an important career perspective that often directs people toward different paths. I cannot help reflecting on this, so at least I am clear about the path I will choose for myself.
There is a natural trajectory of growth in almost every career. For software engineers, it starts from implementing some well-defined requirements to build a scalable solution for ambiguous visions. As people grow, the challenges they can handle become broader and cross-functional in terms of both technical skills and communication.
Large companies create ladders for such trajectories so they have a standard by which to evaluate their employees. The ladders and processes vary a lot across companies. Some ladders have more levels so that the company can leverage promotion as a tool to incentivize people. Others choose fewer levels to avoid a culture that is promotion-driven. No matter what ladder the company chooses, the level affects the compensation for each individual and reflects their role and scope in the organization. Hence, people care about promotion and contemplate how to get to the next level.
The best way to be promoted is to do work at the next level. That means volunteering when people do not expect it. That means stepping up when a more senior person is needed but not available. That means taking initiative when everyone else waits for a call from some higher authority. Do it more and do it often. Ask for feedback and take action. You will learn the skills, build the connections, and earn the respect from your peers. Then, when you discuss a promotion, you already will have been recognized by your peers at the next level. Promotion becomes a mere act of recognition.
Processes are often flawed and, sometimes, even broken. In many organizations, the recognition may come late or not at all. People get frustrated. Some start to fight for recognition.
When you start to convince yourself that “I really hate this, but it is what I need to do to get promoted,” it’s a sign that you are changing course to become part of the culture you hated before. This happens quite often: people compete for more visible work; territories are drawn and fought amongst teams; different opinions are suppressed in discussions (people become “yes” men to upper management); secret groups and alliances are formed to win debates; and so on.
Itis human nature to compete. We not only care about growing, but also about how we are compared to others. When thinking of promotion, many people follow the logic that it normally takes X years for others to be promoted to a certain level, so I should strive to be no slower than that. Smart people even compete to set the record. It is much easier for people to tweak their behaviors to fit the process so they can get promoted quicker, instead of focusing on the success of the company and their real professional growth. Over time, people become part of the process instead of honing their better selves.
However, real career success is measured by our achievements instead of the speed of those achievements. We remember scientists by their discoveries, rather than the years they take to discover them. We respect engineers for their inventions, rather than the length of their tenure. We worship artists for their work, rather than how quickly they can draw. Regarding one’s career, eventually, even they will stop caring about when they were promoted to a certain level.
People tend to overestimate how quickly they can achieve something, but they underestimate what they can really achieve.
I realized this in hindsight with my personal experience for the past 15 years. I spent my senior year in college doing an internship at Microsoft Research Asia. It was 2005, the dawn of the Chinese Internet age. Google had just opened its China office, Baidu was rising, and Alibaba was still unknown to most people. Microsoft Research Asia expanded their internship program and became the best place for Chinese students to learn about the global progress of computer science. I met many top CS graduates there.
We all had different career plans for ourselves. Some wanted to excel in academics, while others wanted a career in the glorified tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and others. There were a few who wanted to create startups, which was not a popular choice at that time but was treated more like an idea that rejects all other options like graduate schools or finding a job. We did not know what the future would hold.
After a decade, it is no surprise that those who wanted a career in a big company landed one. A few academic superstars got faculty positions in top universities very quickly. It took others longer, but surprisingly, no one who wanted a job in academia failed to find one. One person among them changed research fields and schools a few times, but he finally got his Ph.D. in AI from Stanford after 12 years and became a faculty member at a top university.
In college, I thought reality would eventually sink in and change the minds of those doing startups. Instead, they built a lot of successful companies, including Xiaomi, Didi, and many others, which are now part of the booming tech industry of China. There must also be people who had even more ambitious goals, and they are still early in their journeys, even after 15 years.
We will only be remembered for the things we made in our careers instead of the levels we reached, let alone how quickly we advanced.
What really matters is our goal. It is as if we all start from somewhere downtown. Some of us want to get out of the city. We rush there in different ways. Some drive, some take the subway, and some even walk. A few want to go even further, perhaps to a different country. It takes them longer and is more effortful. But all of us will eventually get where we wanna be. Few wanted to go to Mars. We may hear little news from them for years. They may even fail in their lifetimes. But they could land on the moon, or somewhere in space, leaving a dream for our children to inherit. That final achievement of life defines one’s career.
Promotion is only a recognition of our growth progress. It often comes late. No matter how quickly we get it, it does not define our careers. What matters is what we want to achieve. It is important to focus on how to get there, instead of how soon we will be recognized for it. In that way, we can really compete to see what one can accomplish in a limited lifetime.