Is There a Shortcut to Rapid Growth in Software Engineering?

Tips that can save you from feeling burnt out

Are you optimizing your growth based on attributes for the next level?

Do your conversations with your lead revolve around advancing to the next level?

I take part in these conversations too, from both sides. Often, the answer is “Impact”. As we climb the job ladder, the impact of our work extends beyond a project, team, or organization.

But, impact sounds very vague and subjective. Well, it is, but also it’s not. Often, we're encouraged by rapid growth and success stories of others. In most cases, we can’t fully comprehend their impacts. We're also quick to judge ourselves against such high watermarks. In today’s post, we're uncovering some hidden truths behind many rapid growth stories.

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⚠️ Warning

In this post, I'll be very honest and straightforward. We'll also touch on some sensitive subjects. Even if you might not like some parts, I request you to read the whole post. Additionally, I’m open to feedback. Reach out to me directly at akash@chromium.org if you want to chat.

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📊🔍👥 How do Leaders Measure Impact?

Have you recently had a conversation with your manager where they said you need to grow your impact? Let’s break it down. Ask yourself these questions:

• What will happen if we drop this project?

• Who gets to benefit from this work?

• How much revenue growth/expense cut does my work contribute?

• How much noise will it generate if I miss my delivery deadline?

This is not an exhaustive list and depends on your role. But the idea is to understand the effect of your work felt by others. I was in the Chrome Infrastructure team, here’s a version tailored to that.

• At L4, expectation is to impact across your team (4-10 people)

• At L5 (Senior), expectation is to impact across your senior managers (30-50 people)

• At L6 (Staff), expectation is to impact across the whole organization (250-300 people)

These numbers will change based on where you are, the size of the company. But you get the idea.

🤔 What else plays a part in promotions?

🚀🔑💼📈 The Untold Recipe for Accelerated Promo

Every single company has built an expectations framework for all job levels. At Google, you’re supposed to perform at the next level before getting promoted. Not just that, for a sustainable period. That’s the key. Now the sustainable period is highly subjective. And it grows as you go to higher levels.

For example, you need to perform at L6 level for at least 1-1.5 years before you can get the Staff title. In my opinion, it’s completely fair. Job levels and career growth frameworks are designed to provide a gradual upward trajectory.

The problem now is how do you get promoted to L6 in 2 years? It means as soon as you get your Senior promotion, you’re already performing at Staff level? That’s some genius level 💩. But it doesn’t stop us from comparing ourselves with them.

I accumulated some of these success stories, including mine. I got 2 promotions at senior levels in 2.5 years. One common theme I found was working really hard. This is a sad reality that doesn’t surface much in the open.

🛠️👨‍🔧📝Here’s what I did to get my promo(s)

• Became the fallback person for everything in the vicinity of my team

• Spent a lot of times meeting during the day, finished my work during night

• Started working really late hours, no pinging others but I’d prepare code changes late at night

• Started accelerating project timelines, pushed really hard

• Spent extra time thinking what’s next, all the time!

I still managed to make others feel included, this was a priority for me. But in essence, I gave up life. By the end I wasn’t burnt out. That’s the catch. But how? Because I consciously made the choice of doing all of that. Of course a lot of credit goes to my leader at the time, but I also got used to handling stress.

My story here was no different from others I surveyed. Pretty much everyone went through longer work hours. This is something we often avoid speaking freely about. Because it’s a very sensitive topic and can have a negative impact on individuals. It’s very easy to misunderstand. My suggestion is to prioritize your mental health. Focus on long term career aspirations.

I know what you’re thinking. And yes, you’re absolutely right, sitting here it’s easy for me to say. Now, we will go over what I learned from this experience.

💡📚🎓🧠 Lessons Learned

Tech industry is filled with smart people. I’m not saying this is 100% of the fast promo story. But the biggest lesson here is that there is no shortcut to growth. Everyone needs to roughly put in the same amount of work. How long it takes to do that is not a measurement of our smartness. It just tells us about our priorities at the time.

Now as a leader I ensure that I,

🥅 1. Understand individual aspirations

You will have a lot of growth conversations with people you lead. Their goal is to get to the next level as fast as possible. There’s nothing wrong with that. But as shiny as it may seem from the outside, we need to make sure we share the hard truth. A lot of the time, this helps us understand their real motivation. Sometimes promotion isn’t the best path to achieve their goals.

😎 2. Provide opportunities in the job

Create space for them to play the part. In my experience this has helped a lot of my teammates to experience the next level. It helps them decide whether they want to opt for the faster route or not.

🗓️ 3. Constantly remind them it is optional

As humans we are not good with failure. But I don’t think making an informed decision to not pursue yesterday’s dream is a failure. For us the most important thing is the mental wellbeing of our people. Framing it as a shift rather than backing out makes a whole lot of difference.

🌟 🔍 Parting Thoughts

I want to remind everyone that the growth journey is very personal. In the long run, how many years it took for me to get to a level wouldn’t matter. I worked hard for a few years because I was struggling with a personal problem. Work was my pain killer. I don’t announce it to the world, I only show the shiny bit. But your story doesn’t have to be the same. And mine is certainly no gold standard.

I was lucky to have a very supporting leader who assisted me throughout the journey. But not everyone gets that support. In a lot of cases it can turn into burnout pretty quickly. Build your support system, then make a conscious decision. There are plenty of really good resources available on the hows. Checkout:

• Fast-track your career: From Junior -> Senior engineer in 2 years by

  Jordan Cutler

• Building Experience Faster by

  Ryan Peterman

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