Engineering leaders, managers, or whatever they are called at your company, will probably have different role descriptions depending on several factors, such as the scale of the company, its product, and the organization. What is almost certain, though, is that the top priority for almost all engineering leaders is to retain and grow talent. This means recruiting great engineers and developing those engineers within the company.

I found it difficult to know what to expect from my leader at the start of my career, which will, of course, vary depending on seniority and company. However, I believe that discussing and being proactive about your professional development as early as possible in your career will benefit both you and your leader tremendously. Working with your leader to answer the three questions below will set the foundation for your professional growth, which you can then build on continuously over time.

What is expected of you in your current role?

If this is not clear yet, work with your leader to make it crystal clear. Some questions you may want answered could be, for example:

  • What are my responsibilities?
  • How much time should I spend on a problem before reaching out for support?
  • How involved should I be in software design and larger architecture decisions?
  • In what forums and meetings am I expected to participate?

More mature companies (~20+ engineers) may already have a career ladder in place. From this, you can get a quick overview of the different levels at the company and what is expected for each role. Even better if there is a career ladder or role description for your leader as well, so that you know what to expect and can hold them accountable.

What is required to get promoted?

Once you know what is expected of you, the next step is to understand what is required to get promoted. If you work at a smaller company, a career ladder or similar may not exist—that’s fine. The goal here is for your leader to make it clear what is required for you to get a promotion. These requirements should not be a checklist of tasks, but they should not be too abstract either. What is important is that you understand what to focus on and what success looks like. It’s also important to know what not to focus on—this could be project management or stakeholder management, for example.

You should also understand how the promotion process works. Usually, companies run performance reviews once or twice per year, and during this process, it is possible to get promoted (note that, in order to be promoted, you likely need to already be performing at the next level).

What are your improvement areas?

What areas do you need to improve to get promoted? Perhaps you are already performing at the next level in some areas. Work with your leader to define a set of goals with clear success criteria, aligned with the requirements necessary for promotion. Make sure you understand the feedback from your leader here, and that the goals set are actionable. Work continuously with this document (often called a “development plan”), and ask for feedback regularly on work that maps to the areas in your development plan. For example, if you need to improve at splitting work into smaller tasks, show PRs or RFCs where you have worked on this and get specific feedback on that work.

A good engineering leader will proactively initiate and discuss the processes above, preferably already in the onboarding process. But if you haven’t yet talked about these questions, or if you think more work needs to be done in any of these areas, bring this up in your next 1:1. Remember that your leader is responsible for your professional development!