Ask HN: How do you get a promotion when you work in a remote office? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you get a promotion when you work in a remote office?

17 pointsohjeez7 comments

Some years ago, I wrote a book about telecommuting, including a section about the reasons people don't want to be remote workers. High on the list was, "It's too hard to move up in the company" because if you're out of sight, you're out of mind.

Well, now suddenly nearly everybody is a telecommuter, whether or not they like the idea. So that particular skill is particularly relevant. And I've been assigned an article on "How to 'manage up' when you work from home." I'd like your input.

My article is meant to compile practical how-to tips for people working from home on “how to stay on your boss's radar.” What advice do you have to share?

Ideally: Give me a bullet point (“Do XYZ”), why (“It accomplishes _this_”), and perhaps an anecdote sharing how it made a difference.

Please don’t expend energy telling me why it’s important, or what the barriers are. Take that as a given. I’m looking for solid “Do this” suggestions.

Raises/promotions are 2 different things. Most of my promotions come from "I started at $x/yr and in order to make $x+10%/yr or $x+20%/yr, we need to satisfy the corporate job title system and bump you up to a different, higher title to support the payscale range we want to pay you". Responsibilities kind of shift but overall I just code. I don't manage anybody and can't speak to what that's like. That's a whole different ball of asskissing/who do you know/luck of the draw situation in my eyes.

I work remote and I get raises (and eventually promotions based on the brackets) because I am a "force". I drive delivery. I follow up. I mentor. I advise. I listen. I go cross-team. I delegate. I keep an eye on who is doing what/who is good at what. I call out broken processes and come up with solutions/alternatives. I escalate to proper management. I turn stuff around quickly. I write good/clean/maintainable code. I review quickly + fairly. I turn requirements into production worthy code. I meet milestones. I work well with management. I think of alternatives to problems/blockers. I know who to go to for what.

I can be given a concept/idea/project with very loose/very little detail about it. Then I can go suss out the details from whoever the reporter is (nothing is ever as perfect as... you have a user story and it's entirely thought out and it fits perfectly into the software ecosystem we have today). Then, I write it, get it tested/reviewed, get it deployed. They cross it off of the roadmap, inform clients about it, and I look good because I owned it end-to-end (with respect to product team, analyst team, design team, QA team, etc.)

I produce (near) the most so I get paid (near) the most (in terms of what my company is willing to pay engineers). Do I make chump change compared to the people making $500k-$2m at FB/NFLX/APPL/MSFT/GOOG? 100%. But... I don't work there and I can't speak for what it is like to work there. I can't imagine getting granted double/triple my salary in stock options for being a good coder. Maybe I'de be at an intern's level there. All I know is, past 3 companies I've worked for, I've gotten $10k/yr raises every year because I just deliver and try to be as much of a pleasure to work with as possible. Every time I was a pain in the ass standing up for either what I believed in or how I thought things should be, it didn't work out in my favor. So, don't be a pain in the ass. Be the "goto" guy to get stuff done.

I think I will use this (parapharsed of course) during my next performance review.

Okay. GitLab employee here. The next few things are my personal experience at GitLab. They don’t reflect anything official from the company or the experience of everyone there.

You should ensure that you have a career progression plan with your manager. It can be something like a career matrix. You should talk to your manager about: Where am I skilset wise, what do I need to do to progress into the next „tier“ of my current seniority, what do I need to do to jump into the next level of Seniority. All these definitions may be different depending in your company.

You should ensure that you work on your goals and talk to your manager regularly about them. Make sure to keep a journal or brag document to reference things that you have achieved. Make sure that you document your plans and your progression. You should be the one demanding this process from your manager, it is your career, not theirs. Remind them to do this with you.

If your higher management doesn’t have documentation and processes that define how one progresses in the Org, demand it. You can only progress in the org if you know how to. This also allows you to see if your personal goals don’t align with the Org, that it might be time to move away from that org.

Finally a personal note that I had to learn: Be straightforward about what you want. Supply your manager with the stuff that they need. In my case I changed managers quite a bit due to the growing org and it never felt like the right time to ask for a promotion from Interim to Official Manager.

If you are doing the job in a satisfactory manner already, ask for that promotion. If you are showing seniority, ask for the promotion. Make sure to have the data to back it up. If told „no“, ensure you get the specific reasons why not and work on resolving those issues.

Remote or otherwise, here is something I feel everyone should do -

1. Talk to your manager and inform them that you are interested in promotion and ask them how to get there. 2. Make sure you have the expectations for the promotion roles and current role set. Once you have that, you can start working towards it.

Lot of people want their work to automatically get recognised and promoted which is fine, but I prefer this way.

Most promotion fodder is being visible two levels up.

So you need to figure out how to get on calls with those people and appear to not be an idiot.

I can't even get a promoting in the office, so I have no helpful insight.

Just ask for one. It’s worked for me. It helps that I was good at my job and people liked me.

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