Promotion Q&A and Videos

Hello, I've seen the term "maintenance projects" (basically, projects where you do bug fixing most of the time) and green field projects (projects where you write code from scratch). I've been told that the maintenance projects are generally the ones that you want to avoid since you won't learn much. I didn't see this view against software projects on TARO, like to divide the projects in to these categories from a high level view and I was wondering if you guys can tell me more about this business view of the software projects. Are there other categories besides maintenance and greenfield? How can I avoid maintenance ones or recognize them?

I've been at my job for a year now as a junior software developer and I'd like to take more ownership and more responsibilities in my team as a step in my growth/promotion. How do I best approach this and how can I frame this conversation with my manager? ### Context I work in a startup-like company. I'd like to own a small part of the high-impact project I'm currently on (I work with 2-3 senior engineers) and/or own another future project. My manager agrees that the next step in my growth is to own a project but she's looking for something that fits my skillset. At this, I'm left wondering if there's something I can do on my end to help make it easier for her or signal that I am ready to own a project. My manager has said I am trending well and doesn't seem to have any concerns with my performance. In my next 1-1, I'm going to ask for any feedback, as well as discuss my 2025 growth plan. Since the work I'm now doing is more fullstack backend-oriented and I was previously mainly fullstack frontend-oriented, I am also actively practicing to become more familiar with our backend technologies/repos via pairing, code reviews, etc. Since I'm a junior, I know I'm judged on code impact so I focus on code quality (writing thorough test plans, code reviews) and code velocity and I have received positive feedback on these things. Also, there have been a couple of promotions in our team this year, so that might have an effect on the scope of projects as my manager likely prioritized their promotion plans. Thank you!

My manager is all supportive of my promo from L4 to L5, but I am worried that my skip might be leaving the company. I can tell my skip is in a difficult position with their boss (director), so if my skip leaves the company, my confidence of getting promo will go down (my direct manager will stay for a while, though). So what kind of considerations should I have? Should I jump ship, just because of the fact that my skip might be leaving? Thank you

I have 7.5 years of experience. Mainly working on MLOPS and GenAI stack. I will be joining Walmart as Sr. Software Engineer[IC4] next month for same tech stack. Apart from tech i am not so good at communication skills, making new connections, rarely talk to manager unless required to. I prefer to work alone even in projects. This is mainly due to WFH since last 3.5 years. But i'll be on-site for new job so i believe i'll have to farm new skills. I have found this mindset is blocking my full potential. I want to build my non tech skills and get promoted to Staff level . Not sure what it takes apart from technical skills.

Read this in a blog: "I persistently documented promotional evidence. It’s critical to learn how to sell your work through quantitative and qualitative metrics. Before starting a task, I searched for metrics that would show the current state of the system. After working the task, I referred back to those metrics and performed a calculation to measure impact. Then, I documented everything about the task in my promotion documents. I included a STAR write-up, quantitative metrics, and links to code reviews, graphs, or other work artifacts." Could someone break this down into more step by step instructions? Was curious how you would search for metrics and then measure impact.

I am working on defining a Career Path for my QA team. I have identified 3 different tracks as below: Individual Contributor Track: Junior QA -> Intermediate QA -> Senior QA -> Staff QA -> Principal QA Managerial Track: Junior QA -> Intermediate QA -> Senior QA -> QA Lead -> QA Manager -> Senior QA Manager -> QA Director SDET Track: Junior SDET -> Intermediate SDET -> Senior SDET -> Staff SDET -> Principal SDET Wondering what does the Software QA/SDET role career path looks like in your organizations?

Rejected for promotion based on one missing metric. Due to some conflicts, I didn't get to work on a project which would have helped me bridge the gap. My manager has insisted on proposing my promotion this quarter as well. Even after not bridging the gap specified in last promotion cycle. What happens if I am rejected second time? Would it affect future promotion cycles?