Being good isn't enough

This Hacker News discussion revolves around career advice, particularly its applicability and effectiveness in professional settings. Here's a summary of the key themes:

The Subjectivity and Relevancy of Career Advice

A central theme is that career advice is not universally applicable and its usefulness is highly dependent on the individual's goals, personality, and the specific organizational context. Some suggest that general advice often falls short due to these individual differences.

"It depends entirely on the person receiving it. For some people it means finding work they love. For others it’s about meaning. For many it’s just getting promoted." (nine_k quoting the original post)
"That is, getting promoted is partly it, and partly explicitly not." (nine_k)
"Slate Star Codex agrees https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/24/should-you-reverse-any..." (01HNNWZ0MV43FF)
"Mistakes in life often come in pairs. 'Don't fall off that cliff!' That's good advice. But the problem is, there's more than one cliff. And if you move too far away from the cliff you're worried about, you may fall off the other cliff." (AnimalMuppet)
"And the biggest danger is that we come in with our own bent, our own bias. Therefore the advice that most resonates with us may not be the advice that we actually need." (AnimalMuppet)
"Also: A lot of stuff happens in life that has no regard for your hard work, skill and diligence. Learning to roll with the punches is one of those soft skills everyone tends to need sooner or later, sometimes too frequently." (jmull)

Promotion as a Primary, But Not Exclusive, Goal

The discussion frequently touches on whether career advice, particularly the type that emphasizes visibility and impact, is solely about climbing the corporate ladder. While many agree that promotion is a significant motivator for many, others argue the advice can also apply to maintaining a position or achieving intrinsic satisfaction.

"For many it’s just getting promoted." (nine_k quoting the original post)
"The rest of the piece does sound like corporate ladder-climber advice." (neilv)
"I didn't read this as a 'how to get promoted' post at all..." (monkaiju)
"I don't think those points have to be interpreted as promotion-seeking advice. Even once you have attained a position of where you are doing work with impact, that you find meaningful, work that you love, or whatever else it is that motivates you, you still have to maintain that position." (II2II)
"True, it also applies to people who want to maintain their position, not climb higher. (At least in orgs that don't have 'up or out' culture.)" (neilv)

The "Game" of Corporate Advancement and its Pitfalls

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on the "game" of corporate advancement, where understanding motivations, managing perception, and strategically communicating one's contributions are seen as crucial. However, this approach can be manipulative, easily detected by experienced managers, or exploited by less scrupulous ones.

"The only career advice is - if you want to get promoted understand the motivations of those who can promote and try to make it in their self-interest to promote you." (zug_zug)
"It's true that you need to understand the motivations of people in charge and align your output with that." (Aurornis)
"However, these overly reductive approaches to the workplace can easily backfire. A lot of the go-getter juniors I've had to work with in my career approached the workplace like a game of 4D chess to unlock, where they just need to identify what matters to their skip level boss and hyperfocus on that. Some times it works for a little while, but in my experience many employees underestimate how blatantly obvious these games are to any experienced manager." (Aurornis)
"From a management perspective, you can notice when someone is a hyper-responder to perceived incentives and trying to people-please you into rewarding them." (Aurornis)
"Evil managers see this incentive-reward hyper response and use it against the employee. I've worked with some managers who will spot these go-getters early and then dangle carrots in front of them every time they want to get something done. The employee will chase every carrot aggressively, thinking it's their ticket to getting ahead. In reality, the manager isn't interested in promoting them out of that role because they can so reliably extract extra work by dangling another carrot." (Aurornis)
"When my coworker was leaving, I learned that he was earning 2x my salary. I went to my manager and asked for a raise. He told me he'd promote me if I do some project. I went above and beyond, but my manager simply set me up for failure. I don't think it was intentional, but rather that he's incompetent, because it's a pattern that I tell him to do X, he says that X doesn't make sense, one year later we go back to X." (anal_reactor)
"Now my strategy is to slack off as much as I can. The company is comically dysfunctional, so the end result is that I have a livable wage for effectively two hours of work a day. The rest of the time I'm at home." (anal_reactor)
"If you are looking for the response that I think you are wasting your life, then here have it. You only have one life, and for many people life isn't so great. Help someone out, and do something useful with your life." (smokel)
"jongjong: This is true. It's complicated. Also, if you're too good, some people above you may feel threatened and they can absolutely destroy your career. It's total bullshit that people at the top want to pay it forward. They don't necessarily. They want to help people who remind them of themselves or a lesser version. They often don't want to help someone who might be better than them in any way."

The Importance of Communication and Visibility

Several users highlighted the critical role of effective communication, both written and verbal, in career progression. The idea that work speaks for itself is often debunked, with emphasis placed on making one's contributions visible and framing them effectively.

"And do it in the open. A common mistake is assuming work speaks for itself. It rarely does." (neilv quoting the original post)
"I think the most important skill after the actual engineering is ability to write well (and inclination to do it early and often)." (sneak)
"Even if it’s just on an internal wiki - get the stuff in your head out there." (sneak)
"Communication in general is helpful. Many incredibly skilled technicians are severely held back by the fact that nobody understands what they are doing and how impressive it is." (marginalia_nu)
"On the other end of the spectrum, most truly famous people are not just good at what they do, but also good at creating a sort of myth about themselves, or else has had a friend who loved talking them up. Learning to take what you've done or learned and spin a compelling story around it is an amazing life skill that absolutely will get you ahead." (marginalia_nu)
"I'd say being a good communicator, an 'effective communicator' has the most impact. Not only writing well, but being able to enter and participate in C-Suite strategy conversations as a peer." (bsenftner)
"I have a speech impediment and currently a junior engineer. Will this actually prevent me from getting promoted ? :(" (Kokouane)
"Maybe I should look into some speech therapy but not exactly sure how effective that is past a certain age." (Kokouane)
"Make your impact know with blunt discussions. Don't distract yourself with blog posts and dashboards solely to prove you have impact." (its-kostya)
"Having conversations with management is beneficial in other ways too. You might think effort A or task B is really important, but your management can feel differently. They have a wider view of the company and might think that project C is really critical. That's good info to know. If you know, you can advocate for A and B, or shift focus to C." (mooreds)
"I love this quote from Jason Lengstorf[0]: 'A career is a pie-eating contest & the prize for winning is more pie'" (mooreds)

Challenges and Disadvantages Related to Personal Circumstances

The discussion also brought up how personal circumstances, such as speech impediments or disabilities, can impact career progression, even with anti-discrimination laws in place. It also touched on the double-edged sword of being too good or too productive.

"Or maybe you have a speech impediment and you never get promoted beyond a certain point." (zug_zug)
"I have a speech impediment and currently a junior engineer. Will this actually prevent me from getting promoted ? :(" (Kokouane)
"I hate to say it but it might negatively impact your career. I hope it doesn't, but it might" (bluefirebrand)
"People in charge of promotions often have more than one choice for a given promotion and they will use any criteria they can to weigh for or against you" (bluefirebrand)
"A speech impediment is more likely to weigh against you than for you, unfortunately" (bluefirebrand)
"I'm going deaf, and looking into fixes for that. I don't think you should be ashamed of your speech impediment, but I also don't think you should be ashamed for looking into help fixing your impediment either" (bluefirebrand)
"My data point: I have a severe stutter. I might have been lucky (and also no two stutters are the same), but I don't think it has even mattered at work." (vigliag)
"No, I got multiple cases of managers with speech impediment, I also saw a blind tech lead and a deaf one (who also happened to have a small speech impediment)." (bionsystem)
"Being highly productive and effective result in work done faster.. and more work given !" (solannou)
"If you're too good, some people above you may feel threatened and they can absolutely destroy your career." (jongjong)
"If the incentives are wrong, ya. At the lower levels of big tech, I don't think this is an issue. Or maybe I've been fortunate but all my managers and skip managers seem aligned on helping progress my career. Maybe because we're not competing for the same position and there's room for growth." (8n4vidtmkvmk)
"When a senior eng with perceived 'low-agency' suddenly takes a leave, those effects are felt way more than if a 'high-agency' junior does. All's this to say, make your impact know with blunt discussions." (its-kostya)

Doubts about the Effectiveness of "Go-Getter" Strategies and the Importance of Agency

Some users expressed skepticism about the efficacy of purely transactional or "game-playing" approaches to career advancement. They also discussed the concept of "agency" and how its perception can be misunderstood, while also highlighting that not all environments reward or even acknowledge initiative.

"In my experience many employees underestimate how blatantly obvious these games are to any experienced manager." (Aurornis)
"The problem is of course that there isn’t that many good managers." (xoac)
"The company is comically dysfunctional, so the end result is that I have a livable wage for effectively two hours of work a day. The rest of the time I'm at home." (anal_reactor)
"This means we're slowly building a team of lazy fucks, contributing to the overall rot in the company. Which honestly isn't a bad deal from my perspective when you think about it." (anal_reactor)
"Agency is a great observation. But also bring up these conversations with your direct management so they recognize the work you do. Employees with less responsibilities outside of work (no kids, no families, etc) might appear to be high-agency while in reality being less effective." (its-kostya)
"And in the long run, the best way to get what you want is to deserve it." (musbemus quoting the original post)
"And just a comment on agency: it's not necessarily rewarded or even acknowledged in all environments. Some expect that you're literally a worker-robot and just need someone to carry out menial tasks from up top. You don't want to end up at one of these places, regardless of what your life situation is." (musbemus)

The Role of Personality and "Soft Skills"

The importance of "soft skills" beyond technical prowess, such as being personable, managing perceptions, and having a positive attitude, was also raised as a significant factor in career success, sometimes outweighing technical skills.

"Honestly, being medium-good + personable and easy to work with is more than enough for most jobs in most fields." (ForHackernews)
"Only a certain tiny subset of SV engineers have this hypercompetitive mindset. If you think you're LeBron, good luck to you." (ForHackernews)
"I agree with that. I've seen people get frustrated with this where they and their employer (as embodied by their manager or colleges) are talking past each other, in a sense. Employee is very good at X, and wants their job to be about X and be judged on X. But to their manager and colleges, the job they want them to do is only partially about X; they'd also like a lot of Y and some Z in there as well." (jmull)