From Engineering Manager to Director: three promotions in six years.

This might be the most important point I can share. On my second day in the office, someone asked me:

I never wanted to be a pure people manager, so I replied that I had just started leading the Unified Platform team and was looking forward to working together.

Over the next few years, I acted as product manager multiple times when there was no fixed product manager. The team grew from one team to three with a much bigger product portfolio. I eventually hired three PMs, but doing the product work myself early on expanded my skill set and my portfolio rapidly.

If your team delivers strong results, you share the credit as their leader. If they struggle, it hurts your credibility. I intentionally cultivated a culture that was collaborative, high-performing, and candid, and I held myself to the exact same bar I set for them. My team and I were shaping each other through the whole journey.

I listened and acted on it: organising an EM summit, facilitating meet-up sessions, sharing learnings, and building personal relationships across the community. I couldn't have done it alone; it took approval from VPs and help from the event team.

Very few people have the energy and motivation to maintain a community, which is exactly why it's such a leverage point. Growing a peer community is an overlooked chance to shine as a leader, and it gets raised in your favour when promotion calibration happens.

That means keeping the evidence of your impact, connecting it to business outcomes, and making sure the people in the room have heard of it before the round starts.

Feedback is part of that case. I wasn't naturally good at asking for it, and not everyone I asked actually delivered. But peers and leadership exchange feedback about you behind closed doors during promotion rounds. Once I understood that, it became clear: ask early, so you can fix the gaps before calibration starts.

Moving from Senior EM to Director was much harder than the previous promotions. For over a year, I pushed for the Director title, and my manager didn't feel I was ready. It was deeply frustrating at the time.

Looking back, that period was my biggest growth phase. To bridge the gap, I led a cross-department initiative involving over 20 teams, which improved my visibility among top executives. I merged two competing backend teams. I resolved long-standing underperformance issues.

Instead of just waiting for the internal process to play out, I interviewed externally while employed and received several offers, including a Head of Engineering role at a large company. I showed my manager the offer and asked just one question:

Less is more here; HR and the leadership above me understood the game very well. I received a retention bonus to stay, and a few months later my Director promotion was finalised. The fact that I asked that question instead of resigning showed I genuinely wanted to stay, and my leadership appreciated it. If you get to this point, read up on how to negotiate the offer itself first, because the offer is only leverage if you would truly take it.