[jandrewrogers]

Stalling out on promotion has always happened. It can be explained almost entirely by two factors:

As you become more senior, the success metrics for your role change significantly. Mentoring only goes so far because there is a large element of self-awareness and a willingness to change. Some people never recognize this and many never successfully adapt to what seniority entails. It is the career equivalent of trying to raise a Series B with a Series Seed pitch deck.

There are a much smaller number of senior roles than people who can be promoted into them. Above a certain level promotions are highly competitive. You are being stack-ranked against everyone else that can do the same job and tenure is only an input into that calculus to the extent it gives you unique domain expertise. A successful strategy for avoiding hyper-competitive promotions is to create a new promotion-like role that doesn't really exist. However, this requires a level of initiative and agency that most employees never exhibit, and these opportunities only exist at specific moments in time.

Raises, on the other hand, are largely impacted by complex financial and economic considerations. Many companies could do much better at this but even then I think employees significantly underestimate the network of opportunity costs that must be considered.

[seanmcdirmid]

Another aspect of being promoted: many of us see what the next level has to do/is doing and isn’t interested in doing that. I’ve seen people get promoted and then immediately implode because N+1 started involving lots of politics that they couldn’t or didn’t want to handle. Even senior IC roles get more and more exposed to non-technical and organizational issues.

[jandrewrogers]

This is very true. I think it takes a while in your career to recognize what your ideal terminal role is because you have to get close enough to some roles to realize that you never want to do them. Nonetheless, some people have a strong drive toward the status of promotion that seems to take priority over liking the job.

Finding a level that suits you and being satisfied with it is an important life hack.

[AnimalMuppet]

During the interviews for my last three jobs, I explicitly said that my career goal was to never become a manager. I guess I started saying that when I had about 20 years of experience.

[nradov]

The usual solution to "The Peter Principle" is to give the promotable employee the additional responsibilities first without the job title (or salary) and see if they rise to the occasion. If not then it's easy to dial back assignments without going through a demotion or termination.

[rapidaneurism]

And if they do rise to the occasion you keep paying them the lower salary.

[danans]

> Some people never recognize this and many never successfully adapt to what seniority entails.

> > However, this requires a level of initiative and agency that most employees never exhibit

Even if some aspects of that might be true on the individual level, this take is the classic "blame the individual, but don't question the system."

Nothing about the concentration of capital by mega-corporations (enabled by tax policies they pushed). Nothing about the unfolding multigenerational disruptions by AI on the white collar job market. Just the old well laundered "bootstraps" argument.

[coffeemug]

Both arguments can be (and are) right at once.

What OP said is definitely true on the micro level-- not "even/might/some aspects", but the whole thing. It's true that in any given organization there are fewer senior roles because of hierarchical nature, it's true that as you progress up the ladder the demands change and increase, and it's true that many people fail or choose not to adapt.

The macro argument seems right as well. If you measure it longitudinally the numbers don't stay constant. It's 1 in 4 today, maybe it was 1 in 10 fifteen years ago. Anecdotally there is definitely something strange going on with the labor market that's new, and that you can't explain by micro realities alone.

[SR2Z]

Getting promotions that can pay $1M is something only possible with massive tech companies lol

[21asdffdsa12]

Those employees that show that sort of initiative, create companies of their own - to at least sell that initiative as consultant.

[matwood]

Another thing I tell people is if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted. Many people do a job well and make themselves too critical in a certain position thinking it will make their job more secure. First, the way layoffs typically work, they are likely not more secure. And second, it makes promotions much harder.

> create a new promotion-like role

I do this for people on my team when I can.

[gwbas1c]

In a hierarchical organization, there's a lot less room at the top: There's only one CEO, only a handful of executive positions, ect. Not everyone needs to be a leader to be successful.

[ashleyn]

Past a certain point there's also a diminishing return on the effort put in to get a raise/promotion and it mostly becomes about managing "up or out" expectations.

I'm about maxed out for development roles compensation wise. By saving most of this compensation and investing it in the S&P 500 and similar indices, I get way more of a return for far less effort. There are days - not months, days - where I'll earn about $7,500 in stock appreciation. The long term trend has me about matching my monthly salary in earnings.

Raises are inflation adjusted so there's no erosion of the underlying capital going into investments.

Why try harder when I'm paid enough to just invest it in the stock market? The biggest problem I have right now isn't how to get a promotion or raise, it's coming up with increasingly contrived excuses to avoid up-or-out and being pushed into more responsibilities.

[erikerikson]

When you control what work means you can live much more cheaply. Unless you love the high COL areas and high burn lifestyle, it might be time to work on something more personally and emotionally worthwhile.

[tasuki]

> Stalling out on promotion has always happened.

I don't get this framing. No one is owed a promotion. (Unless that was explicitly promised of course!)

Me, I'm worse than stalled out: I'm earning one tenth of what I used to. And I'm happy with my job! Imagine!

[rsynnott]

Also, sometimes, the next level up is something that not everyone will actually want to do. And, depending on personal circumstances (and what the company's expectations are; many will have a level that there's no expectation people progress beyond), that may be _fine_.

[zipy124]

There is also the fact that hiring outside can be preferred to promoting internally for some reason I have yet to figure out.

[rapidaneurism]

Internal people are people paid more than their market value (otherwise they would have left).

[zipy124]

Is that actually true? I was under the impression it was the opposite.

[rapidaneurism]

I'm a bit cynical :) there are other reasons to stay in a job, but the definition of market value is how much you can successfully interview for. So yes staying in a job signals that nobody wants to give you more money.