Believe it or not, it can be easier. Often you're seen as a certain type or level in your current job. They can't imagine you doing a different one. Plus, if they promote you, they just have to fill a lower position. A new company doesn't have any of these biases.
A friend in night school said he fully expected to have to move to a new company to get promoted. His current boss didn't see him as someone with a masters-level intellect.
Yeah, as far as I've observed, this is one of the key reasons for consistent short (1-2yr) durations working at companies in the tech industry. You get a raise by getting hired at a new company. Personally for me, each time taking a job at a new employer has resulted in far greater compensation increases than if I had stayed at the same place and waited for a bonus/raise.
And even if you manage to convince your manager to consider you for the promotion/transfer often they'll ask you to start doing the new job on the side for a bit to prove yourself. Now, how good are you going to be at something new that you are doing part time with nobody taking you seriously and supporting you? It's much easier to get the title first and grow into the job afterwards.
There's the perception, yeah. I've also been told that I was so productive in my current role, they saw it as a loss to move me to my target role. Of course, they lost me entirely...
There's a place for that: just because someone's a good engineer doesn't make them a good leader or manager, for instance. But such stiff attitudes really hurt an org, IMO.
As someone who has never been promoted internally, and has been promoted externally on about half my new roles , I can tell you that taking a job elsewhere is the easier path.
I wonder if anyone with success getting promoted internally can chime in on what are some good tactics/resources?
This may not be helpful in the context of Fortune 500 companies, but here it goes. I started at my current small company as a designer in 2011 with minimal formal training and a couple of years of self-taught experience. In the past ten years, I’ve been proposed to Sr. Designer, Consultant, and now Sr. Consultant. Moving from $10/hr to $95k/year in the process. The line of work is AV consulting and programming for commercial architecture.
Let me contrast this with my job experience immediately preceding this, circa 2007 to 2011. I worked as an IT Manager at a University Law School. I started as a student help desk and eventually managed the AV systems in the classrooms. I couldn’t get promoted because it was part of a sprawling organization with super rigid job roles. I’d get in trouble for going above and beyond my job role. I wanted better pay at one point, so I applied for the tiniest move-up at a different school on campus and made it through a bunch of interviews until I met with the CIO of that school. She figuratively spit on my resume and told me to get fucked. I swear that she had a chat with the CIO of the law school, and they plotted her performance with me.
My educational background is a BA in music, so I don’t have rock star credentials. Well…I have very modest rock music credentials, but hiring managers don’t give a shit.
So what happened with my current job? It’s a small company. 10-20 people for most of the time I was there. Everything that pissed off the university delights the small business. I was able to wear new hats and jump into little side projects and demonstrate the value of my intelligence and enthusiasm. Also, I can’t overstate this; I work for the best boss I can imagine. She assumes the best in everyone and has a mental growth trajectory for all that isn’t marred by fuck ups. She sees the mistakes as learning, as they should be.
I’m far enough along in my line of work where I can see that I’d need to change companies if I wanted a quick and easy promotion or a 20% raise. However, I can build/grow the position I’m in. My ambitions are more tied up in my family and personal wellness and growth lately.
Of course. I'm not going to spend all that time updating my resume and going through all the interview hurdles not to get better paycheck. I'm going to keep applying until I've accomplished getting that better job I'm ready for.
This is very very hard to do if you want to go from software engineer to manager. Almost impossible - I have tried sending out hundreds of resumes over periods of years. You need to be promoted internally - but that is impossible unless you know someone. The internal job postings are a sham. I absolutely HATE software development but have been stuck in this role for 15 years and 5 years since I genuinely started loathing it. But there is no escape unless I want to go work in Tescos. I've not seen a promotion into management in my 15 years in the industry across 7 different companies. For all intents and purposes it does not happen and if you go into software, you aren't getting out.
Are you working at a large org? If you want internal mobility, particularly for IC -> manager in software eng, I would highly recommend moving to a startup. My experience at startups has generally been that the company can't convince enough of the engineers to move into management so the transition is extremely easy for those who are willing.
Or even just a smaller company that is not a start-up. In my experience, smaller companies are always looking for a way to become larger companies, and at their size, a single hire can make a significant difference. In fact I'd say the odds are better than in a start-up, because a start-up often has tons of cash to burn up along the way of learning which people could be additive.
Even large orgs can be like this, as long as they (the whole company, or more likely just the small part you work for) are growing. It’s usually much harder to hire managers. Just go anywhere that’s growing, prove you’re a competent tech lead by organising/coordinating your IC work, and you’ll get the manager twisting your arm to become a lead.
Ask how many reports the hiring manager has, and how many it was a year ago. If it was 10 and now it’s 20, that hiring manager is probably desperate to hire a lead to take care of some of the people managing.
I’ve seen this at Facebook and Google, so it’s not just small companies.
With startups, it’s much easier to determine if the team hiring is growing, because the answer is yes.
Is this a UK thing? I think I’ve read this before on HN, “getting promoted from software engineer to manager is hard”.
It seems to be a cultural thing. In the US, the manager is not seen as “superior” necessarily and many people actively do not want to be promoted (and a bunch of kids pouring into the field every year) so getting a management position is not particularly hard, even if you’re under 30.
I'm in the UK and at you wouldn't have any issue where I work(big AAA games publisher) - very very very few people want to be managers, so if someone expressed interest in managing they'd be given all training and support to make that happen, probably would get them promoted within a year or less. In fact I'd say that with some seniority under your belt you have to start actively avoiding management roles if you don't want them.
Yes, I have gone exactly through this myself, and now that I'm a manager I've helped several people become managers themselves, and it always starts with people expressing interest in the path. It's generally very encouraged where I work.
>>get managed out rather than promoted, I bet you.
That's a pretty wild bet to make, given that you know, I'm actually talking from experience.
Maybe it's a cultural thing but my experience has been the exact opposite. As a software engineer you have to actively avoid taking a management position after a few years at any given company.
I agree its true but its easy to change your resume to make your current job a lite manager. Put the title in and list all the responsible stuff you've done. With a bit of exaggeration you've been some kind of middle manager the last 5 years I'm sure.
I went contracting after the last permanent position turned out to be another dead end. Now I've given up and just work enough to pay the bills so I can avoid programming as much as possible.
