The Promotion I Didn’t Get (And What It Taught Me About Advocating for Myself)

Picture this: You’ve been crushing it at work for almost two years. You’ve gone above and beyond, taken on responsibilities that aren’t technically in your job description, and earned recognition from leadership several levels above you. Performance review season rolls around, and you’re practically bouncing in your chair, waiting for that well-deserved promotion.

Then you don’t get it.

That was me in December 2023, sitting in a conference room at Boeing, staring at my performance review in complete shock. I had done everything “right”—or so I thought.

The Setup: When Hard Work Felt Like Enough

Let me paint you a picture of that summer. I was a Software Engineer 1 at Boeing, nearly two years into my role, and I felt like I was hitting my stride. Then my manager asked if I wanted to mentor our four summer interns.

“Sure,” I said, not fully grasping what I was signing up for.

What followed was one of the most challenging and rewarding summers of my career. I was essentially running a mini boot camp—onboarding four bright, eager interns while maintaining my existing workload as a full-time engineer. I created training materials, scheduled regular check-ins, assigned projects, provided feedback, and somehow managed to keep everyone (including myself) productive and learning.

The work didn’t stop there. Boeing asked me to represent the company at a virtual conference, speaking on a panel alongside other Boeing engineers in our virtual “booth.” I was literally the face of our engineering team to external audiences. When new employees started joining our team, I realized we had no proper onboarding documentation, so I wrote comprehensive guides that became the standard for our entire department.

By every measure I could think of, I was exceeding expectations. I wasn’t just doing my job—I was doing my job plus mentoring, plus external representation, plus process improvement. My manager knew what I was doing. Leadership several levels above me knew my name and my contributions. I had earned the unofficial title of “the new grad who successfully had interns,” which felt like a badge of honor in a company where mentoring often gets delegated to more senior engineers.

At Boeing, the jump from Software Engineer 1 to Software Engineer 2 isn’t massive. It’s an acknowledgment that you’ve grown beyond the new-grad level and can handle increased responsibility. Given everything I had accomplished, it felt like a foregone conclusion.

I was wrong.

The Shock: When Boxes Don’t Equal Promotion

December came, and with it, the annual performance review cycle. I walked into that meeting expecting validation, recognition, maybe even praise for going above and beyond.

Instead, I got standard performance feedback and no promotion.

The initial reaction was pure shock. I sat there thinking, “There must be some mistake. Surely they forgot to check some promotion box somewhere.” Then came the hurt—a deep, personal disappointment that made me question everything I thought I knew about how corporate advancement worked.

I had done the work. I had checked all the boxes I thought mattered. I had visible impact, leadership recognition, and measurable results. So why wasn’t I moving up?

The worst part wasn’t even the missed promotion—it was the realization that I had no idea what I had done wrong or what I should have done differently.

The Reflection: What I Missed in Plain Sight

After the initial sting wore off (okay, it took a few days and some therapeutic venting to friends), I forced myself to analyze what had happened. Not from a place of bitterness, but from genuine curiosity about where my strategy had failed.

Here’s what I discovered: I had been playing a game without knowing the rules.

I had assumed that exceptional work would speak for itself. I had operated under the belief that if I just did enough impressive things, promotion would naturally follow. I thought visibility meant automatic advancement.

But promotion isn’t just about what you do—it’s about alignment, expectation-setting, and strategic communication.

The hard truth I had to face: I never had a single conversation with my manager about wanting to be promoted.

Not one. I had assumed he could read my mind, that my extra efforts were obviously building toward advancement. I had never asked what specific criteria I needed to meet for promotion to Software Engineer 2. I had never requested regular check-ins on my progress toward that goal. I had never even explicitly stated that promotion was something I was working toward.

Looking back, this seems insane. But at the time, it felt natural. I was working hard, getting recognition, taking on more responsibility—wasn’t it obvious that I wanted to advance?

Apparently not.

The Deeper Lesson: Advocacy Is Not Optional

This experience taught me something fundamental about corporate advancement that no one had ever explicitly told me: You cannot assume that good work equals automatic promotion.

Promotion is not a reward that gets automatically dispensed when you reach a certain level of achievement. It’s a business decision that happens through conversation, alignment, and mutual understanding between you and your manager.

Here’s what I should have done differently:

1. Had the Promotion Conversation Early

I should have told my manager, probably six months before performance reviews, that I was interested in being promoted to Software Engineer 2. Not hinted at it. Not assumed he knew. Explicitly stated it as a goal I was working toward.

2. Asked for Specific Criteria

Instead of guessing what would impress leadership, I should have asked my manager: “What specific skills, achievements, or demonstrations do I need to show to be ready for promotion to level 2?” Every company, every team, every manager has different priorities. Some value technical depth, others leadership potential, others cross-functional collaboration. I was playing darts in the dark.

3. Established Regular Check-ins

Rather than hoping my extra work was being noticed and properly weighted, I should have scheduled monthly or quarterly conversations specifically about my promotion trajectory. “Am I on track? What should I be focusing on? What gaps do you see?”

4. Documented My Impact

While my work was visible, I hadn’t been systematically documenting and communicating my achievements in a way that made it easy for my manager to advocate for me during promotion discussions. I should have been keeping a running record of my contributions, their business impact, and how they demonstrated readiness for the next level.

5. Understood the Promotion Timeline

I had no idea when promotion decisions actually got made or what the process looked like. I should have asked about the timeline so I could work backward from decision deadlines, not forward from my own arbitrary expectations.

The Broader Truth: Meritocracy Is a Myth

This experience forced me to confront an uncomfortable reality about the tech industry: pure meritocracy doesn’t exist.

I had been operating under the assumption that the best work would naturally be recognized and rewarded. That if I just kept my head down and delivered exceptional results, advancement would follow. This belief is not only naive—it’s actively harmful to your career growth.

The truth is that promotion decisions happen through human conversations, often behind closed doors, between people who may have limited visibility into your day-to-day contributions. Your manager needs to be able to articulate why you deserve promotion to their manager, who needs to be able to defend that decision to their leadership.

If you never have explicit conversations about your goals and progress, you’re leaving your career advancement entirely to chance and assumptions.

This is especially important for people from underrepresented backgrounds in tech. The informal networks and “obvious” career progression paths that benefit some people may not automatically extend to you. Being exceptional at your job is table stakes—you also need to be exceptional at advocating for yourself.

The Reframe: From Disappointment to Empowerment

Once I worked through the disappointment, I realized this experience was actually a gift. It taught me career management skills that I’ll use for the rest of my professional life.

I learned that advocating for yourself isn’t pushy or presumptuous—it’s professional. I learned that having explicit conversations about your career goals helps your manager help you. I learned that visibility without alignment is just performing for an audience that might not be paying attention to the right things.

Most importantly, I learned that taking ownership of your career progression isn’t just smart—it’s necessary.

The Action Plan: What I Do Differently Now

Since that experience, I’ve completely changed how I approach career development:

1. I have explicit goal-setting conversations with every manager. Within the first month of working with someone new, I tell them where I want to be in six months, a year, and two years. I ask what they think it will take to get there.

2. I ask for specific, measurable criteria. Instead of accepting vague feedback like “keep doing great work,” I push for concrete examples: “What would a promotion-ready project look like? What skills should I develop? What kind of impact do you want to see?”

3. I schedule regular career development check-ins. Separate from project updates or performance discussions, I have monthly conversations focused solely on my growth and progression.

4. I document everything. I keep a running record of my achievements, the problems I’ve solved, and the impact I’ve had. When promotion time comes, I can provide my manager with a comprehensive case for why I’m ready for the next level.

5. I understand the promotion process. I ask about timelines, decision-makers, and criteria. I make sure I understand not just what I need to do, but when and how promotion decisions get made.

The Silver Lining: Better Than Getting Promoted

Here’s the plot twist: Not getting that promotion was actually better for my career than getting it would have been.

If I had been promoted based on my assumption-driven approach, I would never have learned these crucial career management skills. I would have continued to believe that good work automatically leads to advancement, which would have hurt me in more senior roles where self-advocacy becomes even more critical.

Instead, I learned early in my career that I am the primary driver of my own advancement. I learned that communication is just as important as technical skills. I learned that understanding organizational dynamics is part of being a successful engineer.

These lessons have served me well in graduate school, in new roles, and in every professional relationship since.

The Bigger Picture: Changing the Game

While I’ve learned to play the career advancement game more strategically, I also think we can do better as an industry. Managers should proactively discuss career goals with their team members. Companies should make promotion criteria transparent and consistently applied. We should create systems that don’t require people to guess what success looks like.

But until those systemic changes happen, we need to advocate for ourselves. We need to have the uncomfortable conversations, ask the direct questions, and take ownership of our career trajectories.

Your work should speak for itself, but it shouldn’t have to speak alone. Your voice—advocating for your goals, articulating your impact, and aligning with your manager on your future—needs to be part of the conversation.

The Takeaway: You Are Your Best Advocate

If you’re reading this and thinking about your own career progression, here’s what I want you to remember: Doing great work is necessary but not sufficient for advancement.

You also need to:

- Explicitly communicate your goals

- Understand what success looks like

- Regularly check in on your progress

- Document and articulate your impact

- Take ownership of your career trajectory

The promotion I didn’t get taught me that I am responsible for my own advancement. Not because I can control every outcome, but because I can control my approach, my communication, and my preparation.

That lesson has been worth more than any title change could have been.

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Have you ever been passed over for a promotion you thought you deserved? What did you learn from the experience? I’d love to hear your story—connect with me on LinkedIn or follow @code_with_kate, where I share more real talk about navigating tech careers.