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Comment by jaymzcampbell | Hacker News Reader

I've always used "we" when describing and presenting work done as part of a team, even if solo. There's a certain skill in knowing when to promote yourself, and how you do so. These days I tend to be positive in a group sense, and take direct specific ownership of failings. I may be lucky but I think this has led to a lot of respect from coworkers and c-suite that I've engaged with. I've never once felt like people don't know who is getting the work done in the end.

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Everywhere I've worked, come annual review time, everyone is supposed to emphasize what they did, not what the team did. "We're considering promoting you, not the team, so tell us what you did!" Same with interviews: You're not supposed to say "I was a key contributor of Team X that shipped Product Y." You're supposed to say "I shipped Product Y."

So you have this weird contradiction where you're expected to work as part of a team, but then measured on your own contributions in a vacuum. So if you take credit for the team's effort, you're the bad guy who gets rewarded, but if you admit it was a team effort and take credit only for your contributions, you're forgotten for not having enough impact.

In these situations I will frame my contributions directly without the "we" part, speaking to how I contributed to a particular team output, or if it was 100%, I'll just say as much. My comment was in terms of general talk to stakeholders / presentations / casual conversations - then I default to "we".

E.g. if I add some new feature to a tool and deploy it, I'll say "we've just pushed X...". If I do 99% of some particular feature, I'll still say "we've added Y...". In an annual review I can still speak to what I specifically did. I have probably been lucky in the teams and team sizes I've been in, but I've not had a problem with this.

For context I've mainly stuck to small (<50) and medium (<500) companies. My one experience (due to acquisition) of directly working within a 5000+ company was certainly starting to feel like what you described, I got out.

You don’t get promoted in any well functioning organization until you operate at the level you want to be promoted to.

That means that if all you did was work that only involved your own labor instead of work that involves being over an initiative that involved other people, you can’t be promoted above a mid level developer (no matter your title). You didn’t show that you can work at a larger “scope”.

You can look at the leveling guidelines for almost any tech company.

Even if you are a mid level ticket taker, you should at least try to talk to whoever your project manager is and take responsibility for delivering an “epic” or “workstream” that will show that you are coordinating a larger deliverable.

I used to do that, but decided it was deceptive and harmful. You are not describing reality by saying "we" if you did everything. You are creating a social manipulation. It is better to just accurately describe what happened and allow the correct information to flow through the organization, leading to better decision making. For example, you will have the tools to deal with people who maliciously steal your credit when they say "we" about the work you did, without which you wouldn't be able to address the consequent distortions and harm to the organization if they are to be promoted or given more responsibility. Free riders will be exposed more quickly, giving leaders the ability to more rapidly self-correct the team, and reducing grievances of individuals carrying too much of the weight.

I disagree. It's not uncommon that there is work on a team that everyone might want to do, but only one person gets to do it. Being a team player can mean doing unsexy maintenance work while a team mate works on a highly visible greenfield project. Spreading the credit around a bit is perfectly reasonable.

Reasonable for whom?

In sufficiently small companies yes it makes sense for everyone. In larger and more regimented companies doing the Greenfield project can (and often does) lead to promotions and higher earnings.

Teamwork is fine, but when salaries and promotions are individually negotiated you have to look after number one.

Agreed, if you have not worked at a FAANG (or adjacent) the advice in these threads can work very well for you or very much against you.

The level of politics, promotion, promotion packets, leveling is a whole different level. That is not to start on PIP, hire to fire, etc...

You need to know the game if you're going to play it.

> Teamwork is fine, but when salaries and promotions are individually negotiated you have to look after number one.

I have the highest rank and salary on my team. I am more than happy to send high visibility work to my aspiring team mates. What goes around comes around, if not in the form of immediate salary then in the form of connections and references down the road (which is a much bigger driver of salary and rank anyway).

Playing a zero-sum game at work at the expense of your colleagues is penny wise, pound foolish, even if you truly do only care about yourself.

> Spreading the credit around a bit is perfectly reasonable.

I'm not against spreading credit. I'm against misrepresenting situations to spread false credit, which creates incorrect perceptions and leads to poor decision making and political tension. If an individual did a unit of work, I will acknowledge that, to the extent that it is true. If an individual jumped on a grenade and did unpopular work, I will praise that individual for doing that work.

This is not antagonism towards teamwork, it's to make the team function better by ensuring information propagation is accurate, that the people pulling the weight in the team feel recognized, and that free riders are held to account which is a form of respect to the productive team members.

If you wrote code that is to be maintained by someone else, which I think has to be true 99% of the time, it is "we". You are still operating as a team even if you did the initial work.

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