The Subtle Yet Significant Value of Receiving Praise from Your Software Engineering Peers...
Happy New Year everyone and I wanted to provide some simple yet rewarding insight for my software engineering community as we embark on what will hopefully be a better year compared to 2023. It might have been in 2021 when I wrote about very senior titles such as Staff and even Principal Software Engineer being thrown out to software engineers with less than 10 years industry experience. At the time, I made clear not to criticize the moment but I did share my concern that the tech labor markets were very over heated and we were in the midst of a pretty significant bubble.?
As we all very well know, that bubble popped and when it did, a significant percentage of IT professionals were impacted. A lot of strong software engineers and Dev Managers were out of work for several months and for many of them, their daily routine consisted of waking up and randomly applying to jobs but getting no feedback whatsoever. In the most optimistic sense, I continued to view the carnage as a post-pandemic "reset" in the Tech labor markets. And now that hiring has picked back up, to a degree, the landscape has indeed reset. That said, a lot of IT professionals have had to buckle down and take "stop gap" jobs merely to get a paycheck coming in again. In addition to this dynamic, raises and promotions have slowed significantly. There was a time in the Tech labor markets when software engineers could realize nice annual raises as well as consistent upgrades in their title. But I'm not seeing too much of that right now. With all of this said, I wanted to use this post as an opportunity to help you realize some job satisfaction in 2024 even if you haven't received a raise or a bump in your title in the past 18 months.?
My team and I have recently worked with a developer who was wanting to explore the job markets because he was frustrated with his rank at his current employer. He felt like he should be a Staff Software Engineer rather than his current title of Senior Software Engineer. It wasn't lost on us that he had changed jobs four times since 2018 and he was clearly doing his best to climb the career ladder as quickly as possible. What resonated most with me, however, was the unhappiness. With so many unemployed IT professionals still looking for work right now, the fact that this senior software engineer was making 180k guaranteed cash per year yet not happy struck me as a concern. He needs to be careful with this mindset because the #1 emotion he should be feeling right now is the sense of gratitude that he has secure and gainful employment. We did present him to a client of ours here in Austin and the application was immediately rejected. Here is what the company's Head of Recruiting had to say about him,?
Thanks for sending over Mark.? I think it's best that we pass on him.? Given the numerous short stints as well as his sole reason for his job search being a title promotion, this has the feel of not enough juice for the squeeze.
There is a possibility that both established technology firms and startups in 2024 are going to struggle to provide substantive promotions and pay raises for the developers in their organization. Again, please remember that we're still just getting back on our feet after a labor market crash that was exceeded in severity only by the dot com bust. So everyone is still simply trying to get their house back in order. And that brings me to the point of this post. I want to talk about achieving an authentic form of career progress and yes, happiness, in what could potentially be another challenging year. And yes, this kind of experience can be realized without getting a pay raise or promoted by your boss.??
I'm talking about the dynamic where your software engineering talents and contributions are most evident by your peers. Where your daily function is realized by the engineers working right next to you. The recognition sounds obvious but in this current world, regardless of the profession, we are motivated to spend the majority of our time trying to impress certain audiences of people. And that said, we can't forget about the incredible career value that comes with being viewed as "An Engineer's Engineer". I offer up this suggestion because even with Tech hiring having picked up recently, the landscape is still very shaky right now. I am aware of quite a few companies who still aren't entirely sure what the next 1-2 years will hold for them. And that kind of uncertain forecast could definitely impact the likelihood of software engineers securing a promotion or a pay raise. But that doesn't mean you still can't be happy at your job and realize daily satisfaction from it. This brings me back to the engineer I referenced earlier in this post. All of his focus and yes, happiness, was based on getting promoted to Staff Software Engineer and it just troubled me that he was living in this kind of world on a daily basis.?
It's not spoken enough but some of the strongest recognition you can achieve in your career is from your peers. When we function in a team of professionals and stand out in that group, it's 100% for our efforts and abilities. No politics or favoritism, whatsoever, are at play. And while I'm at it, I would love to share a story of someone who is an ideal example of this.?
There is an elite Machine Learning professional here in Austin whose entire career has been focused on finding companies where she finds the work interesting and enjoys working with her peers. Her name is Janani Mukundan and she's a very special human being. She is currently a Principal Machine Learning Research Scientist with Praetorian, a very successful cybersecurity technology company here in Austin. Her ascent has been incredible but what blows me away is that it hasn't been a result of her taking job after job desiring a step up in title or doing whatever she can to secure a promotion. True, she brings incredible brilliance to the table but her core value has always been to gel and connect with her co-workers. She truly is an "Engineer's engineer". The result from this mindset is that every company Janani has gone to, she has received a lot of consistent and positive praise from her peers. And because of this, she is regarded as one of the top Machine Learning professionals in Austin. She's also very well known. And that is another very nice byproduct of receiving praise from your peers. Your name spreads nicely around town. Janani is not a big networker. You're not going to find her at tech startup happy hours, drinking wine and schmoozing with a bunch of people with hopes of getting mentioned in the local press. She doesn't need to do anything like that because, again, she's already very well known around Austin and held in the highest regard. And she's accomplished this pretty much 100% through years of praise from her peers. While I cannot claim to be anywhere close to peer level with Janani, I love her and absolutely think the world of her. She truly is special.?
I'll never fault anyone for trying to climb the career ladder as quickly as possible. If your rank at a company is something you are not happy with, I support whatever efforts you deploy in hopes of getting a promotion. But please give some thought into your audience you are aiming to impress. VP of Engineering, VP of HR, Chief Product Officer? Despite everything we have read and what podcasts have said about "impressing the right people", please don't ever forget that the greatest and most sincere form of recognition you can earn in your career is from your peers.?
If you're going into 2024 and not sure what kind of goals to focus on, perhaps play with the foundational aspiration of impressing your co-workers. Make others around you better and whatever problems are assigned to you, pour your heart into them and deliver your absolute best solutions. Even if you're working remotely, your energy and work ethic will be felt. After you have done this a couple of times, your peers will recognize your contributions and begin singing your praises. In a short matter of time, most everyone in the engineering organization will know of and think very highly of you. And as you realize this kind of experience and how authentic it is, the concern about your title and lobbying for a promotion will ebb over time. And then, one day when you least expect it, a promotion and pay raise gets dropped in your lap.?
And should that happen to you in 2024 or 2025, the moment will truly be a special one.?
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Thanks,?
Mark Cunningham
Technical Recruiter
512-699-5719
In my last company, there was a "tech lab" in Silicon Valley that I spent some time working with. I was struck that just about everyone there would seem to jump between jobs on an annual basis, and it struck me as crazy. Every time I got a promotion, it would seem to go on a 3-year cycle: The first year I was just getting used to needs, responsibilities and mind-sets of my new job. The second year I generally had things figured out and was working at the appropriate level. By the third year, I would be already getting involved doing a lot of things that would be associated with the next level up. And almost like clockwork, I would get promoted because I was demonstrating that I was ready for the next level. It's also worth noting that part of my career progression depended on people higher above me leaving so there was a vacuum to fill. I would find it myopic for a person to assume that a company is going to magically keep creating higher titles out of thin air. Yes, successful start-ups are going to grow by nature, but not always, and companies that over-promote and get top heavy will be forced to go through reductions... (Current climate as an example.)
AI Enthusiast | Chief Automation Officer at AI Daddy
1 年Interesting take. When working at a company - the greatest form of recognition is the one that you can earn from your peers. Reflecting on it, I can't recall any different promotion case. Always from adding more value to the whole team not only as an individual contributor.
Software Developer At Intel
1 年I'm interested