Here's how you can impress software engineering managers for promotion by showcasing key qualities.

It's very simple; just like how you are struggling to solve complex technical or other problems, your manager is also asked to solve much more difficult problems by the senior leadership. Do you know what those problems are? Your manager may not always tell you that directly. So ask, clarify and then work alongside your manager to solve it. Remember, it's not an easy path - but if you can get through that hard part of solving a difficult problem, you will be your manager's trusted ally forever. Good luck ??

One of the best ways to impress managers is by demonstrating knowledge of the business and the problems that need to be solved first and foremost, then tailoring the solution to demonstrate value and connecting the dots.

In a recent experience with refactoring a legacy mainframe system to microservices on AWS posed significant challenges such as breaking down a decades-old monolithic structure, managing data consistency, ensuring seamless communication between microservices, designing for scalability, and adopting DevOps practices for testing and deployment. Overcoming these involved careful planning, utilizing containerization, and adopting agile methodologies with continuous feedback loops. Collaboration with cross-functional teams and iterative development cycles were also crucial in successfully transitioning to a microservices architecture.

Not only sharing the challenges you face, but enabling less experience engineers to acquire the knowledge is key here. When you are able not only to execute but also to train someone, it shows how deep your knowledge is.

With the the recent advancements in artificial intelligence, creating mini tools that help with software development.Knowing tools is not as important as your thinking process. This is exactly what you need to focus on which is basically understanding the problem and formulating the right approach for it rather than getting stuck in the tools.

Being a team lead is not about managing the development process only, but rather it is about managing human resources as well. You need to understand the capabilities of your team, what they are capable of doing. How are they going about it and help each one of them to reach their potential within the objectives of the team.

Demonstrate Expertise: Show your deep technical knowledge through high-quality work and innovative & future proof solutions. Lead Projects: Take the initiative in leading projects, displaying strong leadership and project management skills (Risk identification and mitigation too). Communicate Clearly: Ensure transparent and effective communication with team members and stakeholders. Cultivate Teamwork: Foster a collaborative environment, encouraging team cohesion and mutual support. Embrace Adaptability: Adapt swiftly to changes and new challenges, showing resilience and flexibility. Continuous Learning: Commit to ongoing education to stay current with industry trends and improve your skill set.

Managing dependencies and coordinating tasks within your team shows your skills and understanding of the process. Not only how proficient of an engineer one is, but also how they are able to navigate over the company processes and politics.

In my experience, the success of delivering a feature really depends on how crisp the requirements are communicated across teams. Product Management's ability to articulate the requirements to the Engineering Lead is sometimes the job half way done as the implementation becomes way easier once the developer what is required.

Communication is the most important skill in pretty much any profession. Even more important in more senior positions. The way you make yourself be understood over your design documents, your comments and communication overall will be what will impulse your career further

Clear communications is not about writing in plain english, or simplifying it. In my view, clear Communications is all about understanding the framework from which your audience are coming, meaning what they do and what they do not understand. This way, you can provide the missing context for them and thus help them reach a stage closer to your own understanding when you are conveying the information.

It involves embracing adaptability and teamwork and effective cross team collaboration and handling. Taking up lead roles and drive the projects with clear plan/roadmap and ensure the team to be aware about the plan and remove their blockers and mentoring them to take up the ownership of their respective tasks are very important. Taking up more lead roles, cross team collaboration, fostering energetic team work culture and continous learning are key aspects to succeed

Nothing is static in life rather live changes adopts an evolves. When developing and building systems.One thing that you need to understand is that those systems are meant to be used in real life , which means it needs to evolve to match real life use case, and not other around.

Regularly engage in professional development through courses, certifications, tech talks and conferences. Share new insights with your team, apply the latest technologies to your projects, and stay ahead of industry trends to demonstrate your commitment to growth and excellence. Learn by mentoring junior members in the team and try to help them by identifying unique solutions for all common tech problems.

While everyone wants to meet or exceed schedules, managers primarily want to avoid surprises. Communicate schedule issues early; demonstrate meeting key milestones; keep track of dependencies flowing to/from your deliverables; and be ready to propose alternate solutions if things go sideways.