I asked my friend how developers can advance in his organization. His response was, “Be visible.”
Visibility in his work environment brings more responsibility and increased scope of communication.
Here’s how he defines the various levels –
- A junior engineer needs specific requirements with a hand-holding from the manager or tech lead. They don’t interact with the customers.
- A mid-level engineer works with leads on other teams to determine requirements.
- A senior engineer takes on complete ownership of a project. They talk to stakeholders like customers or upper management. Responsibilities include setting the direction for other engineers, and ensuring complete implementation.
Rising in his organization requires taking on projects considered critically important by senior management, which means anything with a direct link to the customer because the outcome is tied to revenue goals. The executives are concerned if a customer will bolt because of a project failure. If upper management is directly tracking your progress, that’s as visible as you can get.
For seniority, he did mention – prepare for the eyes of the organization on you.
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