I am an SDE1 at a product company for the past 1.8 years, I need help with the things / qualities I should develop so that I hopefully get promoted in the next cycle. I wish to show a lot of owners...

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I am an SDE-1 at a product company for the past 1.8 years, I need help with the things / qualities I should develop so that I hopefully get promoted in the next cycle. I wish to show a lot of ownership but in our team, the work gets shared with senior engineers, so it seems or appears that we get overshadowed by them. How do I stand out and make an impact, that my manager notices?

What are the things / traits I should be showing to work towards a promotion to SDE-2

Software Engineer

What are the things / traits I should be showing to work towards a promotion to SDE-2- Grapevine

Folks, need guidance to understand what people do get promoted from SDE2 to SDE3. Even though though I’m in good books with the manager, on workwise - I don’t see I’m getting quality work to do. So wanted to know the type of work done to get promoted in these roles. Thanks

How did you get promoted from SDE2 to SDE3?

I have been working as a frontend developer typically in developing cross platform mobile apps with react native and sometimes websites with react an a banglore based startup. My current yoe is 1+ with 5 months internship. When is the right time to ask for a promotion or what all skills are required when doing a company switch.

What all things are required to get promoted to an SDE2 level?

Frontend Engineer

I work in a small startup, we have 10 people in Frontend Team. 2 SDE-2, rest all SDE-1. 
I joined as Sde-1, when I joined them, we were 4(2 SDE-2 and 2 SDE-1).

At the time of joining, they had a messy codebase, nobody cared about writing good, optimized code etc. 

Whenever I got chance to work on old feature, I used to re-write entire code from scratch, made reusable functions, components and moved common functionalities there, all these made the UI better, platform stable. 
Worked on optimization and performance. These folks never cared about all these things. 

Also started peer reviewing everyone's PRs, explained them various design patterns and made them write re-usable components, optimized, bug-free code and other things.

Now I came to know, all these efforts of my mine never reached my manager to due manipulation by one of the SDE-2. 

My manager likes this guy and allowed him to handle the FE team. 
This guy has shown that he's the one who took all these initiative and he got all these things done by the team. 
He involved the other SDE-2 in this game. 

Fast forward 1 year, I see most of my code has been slightly modified by him, moved to new file and my actual file is deleted. 
He has done this in order to remove my GitHub history. 
I'm now getting frustrated and don't know how to handle this. 

Resigning is not an option and raising with manager won't help as he's slightly biased and won't believe me. 

Any help would be appreciated. 
TIA

Getting overshadowed in tech team

I'm a software developer (1 YOE).
What are the do's/don'ts that need to be done to get good promotion?

Work for promotion

I have around 5+ years of experience. I am an sde-2 currently that too because I made a switch. I think I am not able to crack the formula for getting promoted within the company. I made three switch even though I had decent bond with manager and colleagues somehow I didn’t get promoted I have spent about 2+ years in my last two companies. Not sure how do I plan my day or what I need to change. My ambition is to become director/ vp someday but at this pace looks like either I will be an sde-2 or have to leave tech. Please give your suggestions as what to do

How to get promoted

I was recently promoted to SDE 2, but somehow my mind is still stuck at SDE 1, How do I start thinking like an SDE 2 ?

Product Engineer

I am working as a Software Engineer and aspiring to get promotion to Senior Software Engineer.
My manager who use to support me went on a sabbatical, now my team is getting changed for second time in 3 months and the team I was working in from 1 year and wanting to be Team Lead of is sidelining me as I will be moving to new team now. It’s getting tough for me to take lead of anything and people around are not supportive of me being Team Lead even after knowing I am capable of it.. What should I di, should I just keep head down and wait for manager to return and rant to him or just keep poking everyone and snatch ky rights of Team Lead and stay in same team and refuse to change team

What to do when getting sidelined as an SSE?

Software Developer

I am 2019 CSE graduate. I used to work in some startup in Bengaluru but during covid when I was home I switched jobs and choose a permanent work from home. The pay was double what I was getting in Bengaluru and I thought Its better to be near parents and work. When I left my job first job I was a Senior SDE already but I switched to this job for a SE role thinking will get promoted later. Since then its been 2 years and I have not got promoted. Manager cancels all the One-One meetings just 10 mins before the call. I asked him last time and he said he is going to recommend me in the next cycle (perhaps next april). But now he will have a new manager under whom we will work tldr; manager is changing. I feel very stuck and regret my past decisions. I am happy with the CTC but its just that I am turning around 5 years of experience but still an SDE.

I have worked countelss nights and weekends to deliver on time and cancelled plans many times. Is it a good time to look elsewhere?

How to get promoted in the same company?

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

Ask me anything except my company name, or things that can reveal my identity. I may respectfully choose not to respond to your question based on my own judgement.

Here’s a brief intro about me: I’ve worked as both software engineering manager & software technical architect over the last 18+ years on various tech stacks managing backend, frontend and a little bit of cloud. I have seen ups and downs in the software industry. Currently I’m working as a senior architect in one of the product based companies in India.

I’ve been an Engineering Manager before. Ask me anything.

Software Architect

Welcome to Data Scientists's Private Community

If you are the CEO of a company, will you ever consider a Data Scientist for your next CEO. If yes, why. If no, why not?

Can a Data Scientist be the Future CEO of any company

Analyst

Hi everyone, I am currently working as SDE. I do my work very well and i receive accolades from manager and my team members as well. But whenever i discuss my growth ideas with manager, i always receive same feedback i.e. i need to know about the other peoples are working on which task and i need to provide feedback in design discussion call. I am bit confused. I know on very high level about the task but not very much context. And i always provides my pov in design discussion if i am aware of that particular thing. My of our team member's work doesn't overlap with each other. In that case for me it is very hard to share my pov as i don't have more context. Any suggestions how can i overcome two above problems. Thanks all

SDE Job role

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Good folks of Grapevine in tech leadership, what kind of projects make an SDE fresher stand out from competition, that makes you put your finger on their resume. 

Few friends looking for a switch, all with well above-average product thinking and speed to pick technology. 

Any pointers would be nice !

What an SDE should bring to the table as a fresher?

Founder

What is the Tech Team Hierarchy Structure in your organisation? From SDE-1 to CTO? Curious about the structure of Unicorns (CRED, Zomato, Swiggy, Urban Company, Viacom18).

Tech Team Structure 🌟

I have seen from the place I work at that growth (in terms of monetory benefits and opportunities) is much better for SDE folks than Data Science people.

1. For freshers it's easy to learn to write css and get complete responsibility of a task henceforth on completion getting more recognition and praise than in Data Science. Good tasks are almost never given directly to freshers due to steep learning curve in the field hence leading to lower growth rate.

2. SDE folks generally have tasks divided into sprints which make them a lot more easily trackable and appreciable at reviews, whereas in DS at least at the place I have worked tasks are given haphazardly and almost never account to much while reviews.

3. Another observation is that folks who have worked for about 3-4 years in SDE profiles have now become team leads whereas DS folks have not been promoted at the same pace 

Looking at all this, in my opinion data science folks are treated as second class citizens as compared to sde folks.

All this might not be true for all the firms, and I want to know if anyone else has some views on this.

I'm frustrated!

Growth In Data Science vs SDE profile for freshers

Data Scientist

Working as an SDE2 right now. Got promoted recently. Motivation to work is at an all-time low. Feels like I am stuck in a rat race. Is this normal? I see senior engineers in my team and frankly, I don't want to end up like them in the next few years. Immense respect for their skills and what they bring to the table, but I don't see myself doing that. I have a few options to consider:

Bucket 1
Keep grinding at my current role
Decent growth (career and money)
Stable life, certainity
Low Risk, Moderate Reward

Bucket 2
Coast at current role
Look for a switch (preferably outside India)
Make a lot of money
Basically, follow this and keep climbing the ladder
Boring AF

Bucket 1 and Bucket 2 can probably be merged, keeping them separate as it is very different in reality.

Bucket 3 (The Interesting Bucket)
Coast at current role
Build micro-SaaS solutions, contribute to open source, build problem solving attitude
Startup someday
Could result in slow growth, might end up wasting a few years.

The real constraint? I have to support a family. All expenses. We have no other income source at this point. Taking any risk with income is a big deal for me.

Just ranting here. I am not expecting a clear pick. Just looking for more opinions on what I am thinking, and maybe understand if I am overthinking.

What should I do next?

Hi all, 

Hi all,

I just want to share my journey from SDE-1 to Sr. SDE in Amazon in 4.5 years. 

I joined Amazon in Q1 2020, days before the COVID as an SDE-1. I was working in a company before which is known to have a very chill work environment. I got bored there, and wanted to join Amazon specifically because it had a reputation of having too much work. I just wanted to work my ass off.

I had imposter syndromes when I joined. So many smart people and engineers all around me. I doubted if I'll survive there. 
All I could think was how to do my job in a better way. Luckily, I got a good manager who trusted me and gave chances to perform. I worked hard, and got promoted to SDE-2 in 1.5 years. 

After that, I took a break for 6 months (worked very little, focused on some personal stuff). Again, luck played a major part and my manager understood this and didn't give me a lot of pressure during that time. 

After this break, I focused on work again, watched some videos in YouTube around what's the expectations from a senior engineer in any team (link in comments). These videos helped me understand the expectations from a senior engineer in the team. I started to focus on finding systematic problems in the team, and worked with my manager to solve some of them. Wrote a lot of documents, pushed through to get some of that implemented, or implemented some of them myself. In parallel, I was also expected to perform well as an SDE-2, so I did that as well. HLDs, LLDs, reviews I did it all. Noticed other senior engineers in my team on how to design, write better code, how to do better reviews etc. Kept watching content around system design, having good mindset etc.  I believe luck played a major part again most of the things I started worked out in favor of our team. Few things didn't (designs rejected, projects shelved). 

Anyhow, after some hesitation and after 2 years (around Q3, 2023), approached my manager to ask about gaps for a SDE 3 promo. He informed I was meeting most of the requirements and a few which needed some work. We started working on those alongside the promotion document. With some effort and hiccups, my promotion was approved in Q2, 2024. I was so happy and relieved. 

What's next, well taking some time to relax, feeling imposter syndrome again, starting to learn some new stuff. Hope to be a better engineer with time. 


As I've mentioned, I feel luck played a major part, having a good manager is not easy, and things usually don't work out as well as they did for me. Grateful for these. 

Feel free me ask any questions you have. 

Thanks for listening to my 2 cents.

My journey to Sr. SDE

I am an engineer, what I enjoy is solving technically challenging problems. I don't really want to spend my time bothering with non-code solutions to your business problem, and I don't care how much money my code makes you. Just have a tech lead give me a challenging tech problem to solve or build for(WITH the necessary requirements) and I'll get it done. Simple. 


Personally I'm saddened to see how chasing impact has taken over all good tech companies, and how you basically HAVE to create value and take ownership in other ways if you want to be SDE-3 or higher. I would rather be a more technically competent, deliverer SDE (think someone who's extremely good at being an SDE-1). Climbing the SDE ladder is boring.

Any other engineers find it boring and frustrating to chase impact?

To be fair, companies are paying you to earn money, not solve tech 
  
 You have to find things to simplify and innovate in that impact only

What are the things / traits I should be showing to work towards a promotion to SDE-2

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