Managers: Career Goals Without Promotion
When you manage more senior engineers, there eventually comes a time for an awkward conversation. Do you… actually want the next promotion? It’s an important topic and one that’s a landmine for misinterpretation.
A lot of engineers meet the question with another question: “Why wouldn’t I want to be promoted?” I’ve seen people interpret it as “my manager doesn’t believe in me” or “my manager is negging me” or “my manager isn’t invested in my career.” In nearly all of those conversations, the manager was actively attempting to be supportive, but that’s not how it landed.
It can be really difficult for engineers to recalibrate what success looks like when a key source of external validation is removed from the equation. How do you know you’ve been moving in the right direction? Previously, you checked all the boxes and then you got to move on to the next level. Now, you’re senior enough that there might not be a next step, or at least not for a while. As each level up gets harder, and there’s also typically longer time in between promotions. For the vast majority of people, immediately chasing the next step is not sustainable. Most people don’t ladder-climb forever.
