Getting credit
One thing many engineers struggle with is around getting credit for work that doesn’t directly result from the code they implemented. This is problematic because they may not get credit for the work they have done but also because they will likely struggle to understand how to increase their impact to reach senior and above levels.
One way to better understand the value of your work (i.e. what you should get credit for) is to remember that you work for a company – an entity whose goal is to generate profit. From there you can get credit for anything that helps the company generate profit. This means that you can get credit for:
- Debugging issues and understanding the root cause of issues – this can be done from reading code but also from parsing user reports. You can’t fix your system (and improve revenue) if you don’t know what the issues are.
- Saving machine costs – if you save $X of machine resources per year, this is the same as increasing revenue by this number without additional operational cost. If your company has enough scale, this can be a non-trivial amount of resources.
- Making other engineers more productive – either from helping their ramp up or building tools/infrastructure to increase their productivity. This is especially important as staffing is often the bottleneck for companies growth
- Designing good systems – if you do it well, it means that you don’t waste the implementation cycle, your system has a low operational cost, the feature is launched on time etc.
- Connecting multiple functions together – e.g. being the bridge between engineering and legal/product managers/etc help these stakeholders make the right decision without spending tons of time discussing
- Etc. – there are many other examples, don’t limit yourself to code you implemented, tie back everything you do back to the business
Last but not least, taking credit is not an all or nothing claim. For example you can take credit for designing a system and others may take credit for its implementation, for the processes around productionalization etc. Multiple people can actually take credit for the same effort (e.g. designing as system) as long as they co authored the design.
Claim what you did – this is the best way to get the recognition you deserve.