Tracking and hacking your career

Leif Dreizler, an engineering manager, argues that career growth works best as a collaborative plan rather than something employees wait for a manager to hand over. The session aims at individual contributors, though he says managers can apply the same skills. He explains how performance reviews and calibration shape ratings, pay and promotion, and why people should learn how these work at their own company before review season.

The middle of the talk covers day-to-day habits. He recommends keeping a running list of accomplishments, writing brief weekly notes about colleagues, and keeping design docs and project retrospectives as evidence. Impact should be framed in business terms, ideally with metrics. He then shows how to turn a company's career ladder into a deconstructed development plan, rated row by row, with the employee and manager filling it in separately before comparing. He also describes promotion theses, which set out why now, the case for promotion and the case against it.

He closes by urging listeners to own their development, document progress and setbacks, and prepare for manager or team changes by keeping clear project records. Making work visible through demos, team channels, blogs and talks is presented as part of getting recognized, not bragging.