Ask HN: What did you do that helped you reach senior title?

Re:Ask HN: What did you do that helped you reach senior title? by seanhunter on Saturday December 10, 2022 @04:52AM (#33931348)

I have been promoted in just about every company I worked at up to C-suite where obviously promotion isn’t really relevant any more. The common factor in each case is I always (no matter what my theoretical job title) try to do two things:

1) Understand as much as I can about the actual mission of the company. What is it trying to do, why does this make money, what is the impact it has on the broader society, how does my team/department contribute to this mission, etc? This helps to align my activities as much as possible with the companies actual mission because often bosses will give you tasks which are about furthering their career rather than doing this. If you try to make your work line up with the mission you avoid a lot of that sort of nonsense. Even if you don’t succeed, you will learn a lot by doing this and that will help to keep your work interesting.

2) Strive to increase my personal impact. Don’t try to get promoted, don’t try to get influence don’t try to increase salary etc. Try to figure out ways you can have a greater impact. All the other things will flow from that if you succeed.

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Re:Ask HN: What did you do that helped you reach senior title? by Viliam1234 on Saturday December 10, 2022 @04:23PM (#33936954)

> often bosses will give you tasks which are about furthering their career rather than doing this

And what is the impact on your career if you argue against doing that?

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Re:Ask HN: What did you do that helped you reach senior title? by seanhunter on Sunday December 11, 2022 @03:33AM (#33941368)

Clearly depends on the situation and boss but often very negative in my experience, which won’t surprise anyone. In particular if the way you call this out makes your boss look foolish to their peers they will blame you (as I have discovered to my great chagrin). So discretion is often important and sometimes in some companies you have to just suck it up and do the thing because you’ve been told to. That might be a good cue to start polishing up your CV and calling recruiters though.

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Re:Ask HN: What did you do that helped you reach senior title? by michepriest on Saturday December 10, 2022 @05:41AM (#33931530)

Aligning your activities with the company mission is great advice.

“bosses will give you tasks which are about furthering their career”

This is obvious but hadn’t occurred to me

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