Notes on dynamics of promoting developers:

Errors on part of the organisations:

• the organisation has no path to promoting individual contributors (IC) who don’t want to be managers
• the organisation promotes the best IC to manager, and decreses the overall delivery speed twofold: once, because the IC might not be a good manager, and second because the best IC is not delivering as much
• the organisation promotes firefighters, who are vocal about what they fixed, rather than competent engineers, who are quiet because there are no fires to put out
• the organisation promotes corpo-karate adepts who are good at moving through the political structure of the organisation
• the organisation promotes only when the developer threatens to quit
• the organisation doesn’t allow a way back if someone is promoted to something he can’t handle or finds out is not for him

Errors on part of the developers:

• doing invisible things - it’s important to celebrate one’s successes and have the ability to “sell” what one has done well
• mortgage driven development (becoming irreplaceable by refusing to share knowledge) - in some organisations this might work but it’s often the first thing to “fix” for new and competent engineering managers (often by firing the perpetrator)
• constant high-stress environment caused by a lack of planning or competence
• choosing technology specialisation not for its merit but for the résumé

Badge system (continuous improvement):

• system of collecting “achievements” in specialist, organisational, soft skills in place of traditionally defined requirements for each role and level
• badges are leveled - bronze, silver, gold
• each badge is owned by a college (group of individuals) who make sure that prospective receivers actually complete the requirements, the requirements are refined over time to make sure that the skills are still relevant for the organisation, the college can veto granting the badge if they feel like it’s being gamed
• each experience level has a number of badges that are expected to be granted for a developer to be promoted to that level
• in addition to badges, to be promoted the developer also needs to collect feedback about his work; for highest levels (staff+) there are also some mandatory leadership qualities and trainings to complete, and the candidates are required to provide an impact plan
• some badges can be collected multiple times
• there need to be enough badges that can be collected while spending time on projects, without sacrificing quality of delivery
• there are systems in place to make sure that all developers in the organisation are aware of the badge system and interact with it, and are not trying to game it

Management vs IC:

• in $currentyear, a manager/team lead is expected to be a bit of everything (leader, firefighter, therapist, friend, mentor…)
• every high-level IC is also a bit of a manager, and has to manage the team to some extent
• when trying to decide on a path past senior developer, decide:
  • what keeps you going
  • what drains you
  • how do you want to be remembered
  • what is your identity and values (try to write them down)
• soft skills required to progress into further levels of experience
  • making changes without formal authority
  • working without perfect knowledge
  • difficult conversations and confrontations
  • giving and receiving feedback
  • self-awareness
  • storytelling

Golden rule: do things that make your boss’s job easier, not harder.

(h/t VirtusLab @ Boiling Frogs 2026)