I was told that exceeding expectations doesn't necessarily mean that you're operating at the next level, so I would like to get more clarity here. What does it mean to exceed expectations in a way that's building up towards promotions vs. not?

What does it mean to exceed expectations?

Mid-Level Software Engineer [IC3] at Reddit

I've been at mid-level for a while, so I want to level up to senior quickly. However, I'm not really sure what I need to do to make this jump - The feedback across my manager and engineering mentors has been good.

How can I get clarity around my path to senior?

My goal is to level up to senior, but it's tricky as I'm not getting the feedback on how to bridge the gap. I have other engineers in the org as mentors, but I haven't been able to get areas of improvement from them. I don't get a lot of comments on code review anymore either - It seems to be going fine there alongside everything else.

Everyone's telling me I'm doing great - How do I get actionable, constructive feedback?

My manager has given me feedback that I could be more active in meetings, which would help me find my place within the team. However, I find it hard to participate in meetings a lot of the time, because I don't know the technical source material they're talking about. This leads to me learning as I'm in the meeting, and I don't have any remaining mental bandwidth to speak up.

When it comes to meeting types, I'm good with those like retros and brainstorms but those that are more technical like tech reviews and project planning can be hard to a large voice in.

How can I be more active in meetings and earn the respect of senior engineers?

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Junior Software Engineer [IC2]

The key idea here is that there's a difference between **output** and **behavior**. For example, it's possible to do 5 tasks instead of 4 and therefore "exceed expectations", but it may not be worthy of promotion since your maturity level as an engineer hasn't actually changed.

Meta, Pinterest, Kosei

Rahul Pandey

Almost every software engineer starts their full-time career journey here. The content here breaks down how you can start your career off with a splash and grow past this level as quickly as possible.

This is an absolutely vital process for any employee in tech to understand, especially in a world of stack-ranking and layoffs.

The clearest way a company can acknowledge your growth. At the end of the day, you can't solely interview your way to a principal engineer; promotion is the true foundation of your pay and career.

What does it mean to exceed expectations?

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