📈 How to Get Promoted in 2025

Welcome to the sixteenth issue of the Software Mastery newsletter.

As 2024 comes to a close, I wanted to share what I’ve done this year and my plans for next year to pursue a promotion to mid-level engineer (SDE II or L5).

2024 was my first full year as a junior engineer, during which I focused on the following areas:

• Increasing My Scope — At the beginning of the year, I focused on feature and project subtasks without taking on responsibilities like writing design docs or gathering stakeholder buy-in. However, as the year progressed, I began managing projects end-to-end (designing, implementing, deploying, etc.). By the end of the year, I had started pitching projects beyond our product roadmap.

• Working Efficiently — In 2024, I prioritized working productively while maintaining high quality. Productivity improvements have a compounding effect, making it important to start early. I’ve shared some of my insights in previous newsletters, including:

  • 🍌 How to Learn AWS Services Fast 

  • 🤖 Supercharge Productivity With AI 

  • ✅ How To Get Faster Code Reviews 

  • ⏰ How to Finish Projects on Time 

  • 📅 How To Have Productive Meetings 

• Staying In Sync With My Manager — I had weekly one-on-ones with my manager to give project updates, discuss short and long-term career goals, and get feedback on my performance. These conversations are crucial, as the first step to promotion is to perform well at the current level, which managers can gauge.

In structured corporate environments, such as those at FAANG companies, there are guidelines describing the responsibilities for each job level (e.g., SDE I, SDE II, SDE III, etc.). These guidelines are called a leveling matrix.

Amazonians often identify growth opportunities by doing a "traffic light exercise" with their manager. In this exercise, they review the guidelines for the next level and mark each competency as green, yellow, or red.

Green means the skill is already developed, with evidence to support it. Yellow means the skill needs further development or lacks sufficient evidence, and red means the skill requires significant work and lacks evidence.

While promotions aren’t a checklist per se, if you turn most of your yellow and red skills into green, you should be close to promoting.

I’ve already done this exercise with my manager recently, so we are aligned on what I need to do to close the gap on L5:

• Work on More Complex Projects — Most of my work this year has been as technically complex as you’d expect for an L4. Next year, my manager and I plan to increase the technical complexity by having me own a larger project.

• Expand Organizational Visibility — Over the past year, I’ve worked on siloed tasks and collaborative projects with my team. Next year, I want to increase my exposure to the rest of my organization.

Your Turn!

Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter!

I hope it was useful to read about my ongoing journey toward becoming a mid-level engineer.

How do you push for promotion? Reply to this email or leave a comment below to let me know!

Best,

Sammy