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Comment by UncleMeat | Hacker News Reader

This, frankly, seems ridiculous.

A common complaint is that it is too difficult to have career growth without changing companies and that promotions and raises are difficult to come by because companies don't care about developing their people. What you are saying now is that it is also bad if a company promotes people from within, since it encourages people to leave. Both options (never promote / encourage growth) can't be wrong.

IMO, this is not the way it works at any reasonable place. I've had zero engineers under me leave over the last four years and I attribute that in large part to me being able to meet their career growth goals within my team.

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Have you also been able to adjust their salaries accordingly? My interpretation is that rather than saying, "don't promote internally from IC to Lead" GP is saying "here are some pitfalls with that approach" and suggests that it can work fine if you can bring their compensation up fast enough that the money isn't greener elsewhere by the time they can spin their newfound leadership experience into a job offer.

Extra responsibility/accountability/risk without corresponding compensation reads like a promotion to some folks, but to other folks it looks more like a pay cut.

The problem with offering promotions to people already in your company is: what if they don’t actually want the promotion? (Promotions involve more responsibilities and not everyone wants that). And usually, Rejecting a promotion is seen as a bad thing (“oh, Joe doesn’t look ambitious enough!”).

In practice it isn't supposed to be like this. You should be working with your manager over 2 to 8 quarters or more to plan the promotion. The promotion will be won from a committee by your manager. The expectations should be clear.

You obviously talk to them first.

Rejecting a promotion can be seen as bad in toxic places or for junior engineers, but I actually like hearing this from my reports because it means that I don't need to make changes to accommodate their growth.

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