As a Technology Leader, I am frequently asked how I advanced through the ranks and climbed the corporate ladder. This is a great question, and something I eagerly share, as I am passionate about seeing talented professionals advance through their careers. There is a lot to discuss, so I will break this up into sections and cover it in three articles:

1. From Newbie to Tech Lead
2. From Tech Lead to Manager (next week)
3. From Manager to Director (in two weeks)

Hopefully one day, there will be a part 4, but I can only write about where I’ve already been.

Starting out with some education, but no experience is tough. Few corporations will hire someone with no experience, so I contracted for enough time to give me enough experience to get a full time employee placement. For me, that was 9 months. It was quite a humorous and wild ride that I fully recounted here: Hawaiian Shirts & Y2K – Memoirs From My First Tech Job.

My first full time position was as a Technical Analyst on the Help Desk for GMAC-RFC. I logged into my phone, wore a headset, and talked in a calm voice to angry end-users about their PC problems. I was happy to be there, genuinely enjoyed my team, but didn’t plan on staying in that role for long, so I applied Rule #1: Master your current job. I put up the best stats, created knowledge base articles that helped my teammates, and became a go-to person for troubleshooting difficult issues. Then, I applied Rule #2: Start doing the job you want, in addition to your current job. In this case, I wanted to get off the phones and into Desktop Support. That was the group that I escalated to when I couldn’t solve problems myself. The way I applied that rule, was to go further in troubleshooting than expected. I fully leveraged remote support tools to fix nearly everything I could that didn’t require getting out of my seat and physically fixing the computers. In that, I developed a reputation with the escalation teams that tickets that came from me were very well vetted.

Rules 1 and 2 are great, but they won’t actually make advancement happen. I’ve never once been simply promoted in-place to a better job or a more senior role. It’s never happened to me. That’s where Rule #3 comes in: You have to compete for opportunities and win. I applied for a Desktop Architect role and didn’t get it. I was disappointed, but I was told that was two steps ahead of where I was at and wasn’t really qualified. A position in Desktop Support opened up. Me and most of my colleagues on the Help Desk applied. I got the job. This all happened fairly quickly for me. I was on the Help Desk for just 9 months.

My next job in Desktop Support was quite fun. After about a year of doing Rule #1 and Rule #2, I set my sights on becoming a Desktop Architect, but no formal opportunities opened up. I had a longer-term goal of making the switch from the desktop side to the data center, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to make that transition since all of my experience was on the desktop side. I applied Rule #4: Certifications & education augment lack of experience. I got my MCSE twice over. Once in NT4 and once in Windows 2000. That, plus my desktop experience, plus an excellent reputation, was enough to give me a shot at a new set of three positions that were created at GMAC-RFC: The Production Engineering team. This was a Tier-2 Network Operations Center for server builds, racking & cabling, application deployments, and middleware application support. This team was created so the Sr. Engineers could have time to do actual engineering. I got the job. For the first time, I felt like I was actually doing what I went to school for. It seemed like a long time in the making, but it was actually only about 3 years. It was at this job that I blew-up the Data Center. If you missed that story, read it here: The Sparky Incident. As I advanced, I learned that Rule #1 kept taking longer, but I kept on with the strategy anyway.

What led to my next advancement was Rule #5: Volunteer for everything. I learned this one from my Dad. He was in the infantry deployed in Korea in the 60’s. From my understanding, it was horribly unpleasant. He said that he volunteered for anything and everything that would get him out of the field and into the classroom. I applied this rule to my Production Engineer job once I had mastered it (Rule #1). The Sr. Engineering team was still really busy, even though we took over all of their operational work. The manager of the Sr. Engineering group needed someone to engineer this new technology called Citrix. I didn’t know anything about it, but I stuck my hand up really high, and they gave it to me. So there I was, in operations, doing engineering. Rule #2 in action. Eventually, the Sr. Engineering team needed another body (due to an increasing need for security engineering.) I got the job and brought Citrix with me. To clarify, they didn’t just give me the job. It was posted, I interviewed for it, and got it (Rule #3). I achieved this position about 5 years into my career.

I became a Sr. Engineer by being a great generalist, but in order to succeed and stand out as a Sr. Engineer, I needed to narrow my focus. I picked two areas: Citrix and Security. This is Rule #6: Specialize in something. As a Sr. Engineer, this focus area needs to be something at which you can be the best in your company. When push came to shove, my real specialty was Citrix, as there was another Sr. Engineer in my group that was always further ahead than me when it came to Security. So, I set out to be the best Citrix engineer and architect, not only in my company, but I aimed to earn respect among my peer group in the industry. This required interacting with other humans, not just machines. This is Rule #7: Network. The importance of networking for leaders deserves a blog post of its own, so I’ll be sure to write one in the future. For this context, networking meant attending and speaking at conferences, reading, contributing, and commenting on blogs, attending and speaking at user groups, and other such activities far and beyond simple technical training. Simply put, you can’t become a great Sr. Engineer in isolation, so participate in the community, and you will get a lot better.

After becoming a focused expert on Citrix, and well-connected to the industry, I needed to do something further to advance: Rule #8: Own it. I became the internal product-owner of not just the Citrix technology, but the Citrix service. I measured service levels, listened to customers, marketed the features and upgrades, championed adoption and growth, worked the cost-models, and overall made sure there was tremendous value for the business to use what I made. This was probably the most important stepping stone achievement for me to advance further, and one that few engineers take. Most see it as their manager’s job, so in a sense, this is a specific implementation of Rule #2. This is the moment I became a Tech Lead. I wasn’t given this formal title, but this is what I call someone who is as close to formal leadership as possible without having any direct reports or financial accountability. I achieved this about 7 years into my career.

That’s enough fun for one blog post. Stay tuned for next week, when I explore what it takes to go from Tech Lead to Manager. Please comment below and share this post with your colleagues.

Here are the Rules for Advancement:

1. Master your current job.
2. Start doing the job you want, in addition to your current job.
3. No one will just promote you. You have to compete for opportunities and win.
4. Certifications & education augment lack of experience.
5. Volunteer for everything.
6. Specialize in something.
7. Network.
8. Own it.
9. Get mentored.
10. Politics create and destroy opportunities.
11. Muster confidence.
12. New management means old problems.
13. Sometimes you have to leave to advance.
14. Lead a transformation.
15. Sustain a new normal.
16. Expand your span of control.
17. Delegate, develop, and empower.
18. Leadership is lonely. Make some friends.
19. Middle-management is expendable. Accept it.
20. Protect the team.

Get the PDF Here! Rules for Advancement: