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Comment by vbezhenar | Hacker News Reader

Why don't just work on current position? I'm working as a programmer for 15 years and I'm trying my best to evade any kinds of promotions because my salary suits me and additional responsibilities will detract me from writing code.

Those people who don't get promoted are fired?

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It’s a very cultural thing. If you’re very experienced and still “only” a senior engineer you can almost sense people wondering

“Why are you still here ?”

Rachel Kroll explains it well here https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/12/29/age/

“ This particular example was about older folks in tech.

As I remember it, the story goes like this: you're supposed to get into this business, get your money, and get out, meaning retire. You sell all your stuff and travel the world and write posts on Medium. You know, the whole pyramid thing, right?

Therefore, if you are still here, and are visibly old, something must be going on. They seem to boil it down to two things.

The first possibility is that the person is a badass. They are one of those people who already made their fortune and only hangs around at the job because they feel like it. They don't have to be there.

The other possibility is that the person is the exact opposite of a badass, and has managed to not cash out despite being in the biz for a very long time. They've made no money, may be living paycheck to paycheck, and really need the job. Basically, the fact they're not "at the top" despite their age means they are crap.”

I think this must be a relatively “new-ish” thing. When I got into this industry, in the middle 2000s, there was still the image of the “old beard” inside the company that was getting things actually done, and that was fine, one needn’t be a “director of” or a VP, just “programmer” was enough.

I now realize that worldview was on its last days, soon enough (I’d say 2007-2008) we started talking about “ninja” and “rockstar” programmers, first in the context of RoR but then it extended, gradually but surely, to almost all of the industry. And then lots and lots of money started becoming available via FAANG-like companies (I’d say starting around 2013-2014, something like that) and all this worldview was dialed up to one thousand.

There is still an “old beard”, it’s just expectation that if you are an old beard getting stuff done you’re an L6+ instead of just senior. No one would look down on a wisen old senior principle.

A lot of large companies have an Up or Out policy. If you haven't reached a 'terminal level', your position has an expiration date, if it expires before you've been promoted, you get put on a path to being fired. If you've reached a terminal level, then you're ok, but it's hard to be stable in a position in a company of chaos and churn.

It is possible to do that past a certain level, and some people do. But I think the reason this isn't the predominant strategy is that there's a selection bias at play. The kinds of people who are ambitious enough to get a job at Google are also likely to always want the next job up, or if that isn't going smoothly, to move up by moving out.

If you're at a lower level, companies like this have an up or out policy -- if you don't get promoted in a certain timespan, they let you go.

If you're at a higher level, even if you're content with your position, your manager is rated on how many people earn promotions.

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