[lhorie]

> part of me thinks he should be taking a more active role in setting up the right conversations to get me promoted

Nah, in my experience, if you want it, you need to go chase people yourself.

"Stagnation" is very personal question. If you're happy with your work-life balance right now, then you're happy. I know of people that have been happily working at the same company (in a few cases, in the same role) for 10, 20 years. But also, stagnation can be a double-edged sword, in that it may cause you to lose your edge (happened to some people I know). I myself thought being comfortable was fine early in my career, but when the opportunity presented itself, I decided to take it and now I don't regret it. You can think of it as a new challenge to master new skills.

IMHO, there's no correlation between seniority and working long hours. Just like it's on you to pursue networking, it's also on you to set your schedule and office hours expectations (i.e. if you let work dominate your life, that's kinda on you)

[confuseddesi]

This is very insightful - especially the part about it being normal to chase promotion yourself.

In your opinion, what is the right time horizon to switch roles and/or companies to maintain your edge?

[lhorie]

Let me qualify: I don't see it as "chasing promotion" per se. It's more like laying the groundwork, in a "dress for the job you want" sort of way. Basically, it's a lot easier to argue for a promotion if you let your boss know of your intent/career goals, and then you show progress to the point where you can say "look, X and Y can vouch for the fact that I'm already de facto doing a lot of what's expected of that role"

For leadership level, that typically means having valuable working relationships with other parts of the org that your current role might not necessarily require you to interact with.

In my experience, typically first promo might happen at around 2-4 years of tenure (basically whatever is considered enough time to "prove yourself"). Further promos might be more difficult, as they might involve carving a path via some sort of org restructuring.