My manager and I had a plan to influenc that person and it worked. To anonymous who has spent 3.5 years in role at MS. You're already blacklisted. But anyway, EOF for that angle. This is a large part of his job - getting his reports to excel and getting them (and by extension, himself) some recognition.All of the above assumes you don't suck, though. Microsoft is so unique (and not in a good way) that you need to have blogs like this and focus on managing your career inside the hobbesian nightmare, rather than making good and cool software. 3. That is, its hard to define, but I know it when I see it. Do you think I can find a way to do almost as well and stay here, in this job I enjoy?" The last thing I would ever think about is what my boss thinks of me; I just don't care. Agree with all the comments that this is a great post, and was just as true 5 years ago as it is now.My story, which might help the college kids: I began my career at MS out of college as a 10/59, rocketed to 62 - and then sat.I left in 2002 and started building a career at other places, and can now look back at when I left, slap my hand on my head, and say of course I wasn't promoted - I did nothing to build a positive, defensible relationship with my skip-level mgr, and my real influence outside of my individual team was nonexistent. The position entails teaching an introductory physics sequence, upper-level physics courses, and related labs. Had I only known this info when I started at Microsoft. It's a struggle even to get a solid Level 59 promoted to 60 because of budget and under-levelling of devs in 60-61 range. Its performance is compromised by your pandering to the RIAA and MPAA. work on your visibility. I'm at 62, have been for lo, these many years. ceo/vp/director/manager/lead etc. Entry level (428) Associate (378) Mid-Senior level (3,385) Director (2,581) Done . In general, people are not leveled, jobs are. Experienced sales manager with skills in strategy, lead of direct reports, developing sales forecasts, products pricing and launching new products to the marketplace.<br>Proven abilities to manage key account relationships and large-scale projects.<br>Experienced in presenting to executive senior management, meeting with customers at CxO level and coordinating salesmen's Activities.<br><br . sheesh, "We definitely need a new thread, things are starting to happen indeed. Nobody will be shy of firing you if you make a big mess. What now? Excuses and griping and bemoaning aren't the stuff that L63 contributors are made of. It doesnt matter if the system is fair or not. Why? Unless you know for sure that your boss's answer is an immediate "Absolutely!" 5. Incompetent People Really Have No Clue: If youre one of the people complaing about how youre not getting promoted because your mgr is incompetent and youre just as good as all those others who got promoted you could be right. Leadership: pro-active leadership that convinces team members of the future direction and even helps to . It appears on 6.3% of resumes. At L63 in particular you break out of the pack with expertise in the "how" you accomplish things. For context, I have always been "exceeded" or "high achieved", If you want to dig a bit more around job titles which gives you an idea of someones level or the dispersion of a team, remember that the title you see in Outlook is not the real title, its just the address book title. The key thing is finding the right team and manager, along with the comments you made. If you go looking for those problems though, you better be prepared to deliver. By contrast, most directors don't have their own budgets, but need approvals from their VP to do just about anything. You broke the trust cycle so don't expect anything else. and hey if it backfires (eg the mgr flips), I can always take the offer at hand and leave MS.thoughts? For those impatient folks who want to move up every 18 months, watch out. If you're off-path, you can turn it around. I think folks like that are the one-offs who slipped by and most likely (given the scrutiny I see more and more) certainly wouldn't slip by today. Is there any way to get to 63 w/o leaving and coming back? I've been at 59 for going on four years now, and was told by my manager over 2 years ago that I was totally ready and qualified for promotion to L60, but that "there wasn't enough budget" (yeah right), and this was in *Office* (a group which is clearly strapped for cash, I guess). I joined Microsoft at L63 in Office and found it to be a freakshow of people NOT working together but understanding that no team work was better for getting a promotion FAR better than I did having come from the Valley. There are so many reasons why things didn't happen in a given review cycle. So dont try to be joker just to get attention.Now of course, this is all just the theory. We discussed progress at least once a month. Its a natural consequence of the learning curve. You may not need them to get from 59->60, but if you're good at them, it'll make your rise much quicker. The money losing groups hires. Worked my ass off and finally get recognized as Snr contributor. Why cannot we have our address title reflect our level as everybody else in the company?Maybe because you are so overleveled (maybe not you personally, but MSN as whole), your bosses doesn't want rest of the company to make ruckus about that injustice (I have seen people moving from SDE II in Windows to MSN and getting promotion-on-transfer to SENIOR SDE, and they were not even hard-core devs). They didn't want to plateau, but that is just where they were given MS talent pool. I came in at L61 2+ years ago. Yes, "soft skills" count.I'm pleased that someone said it.There are a collection of skills that are difficult to quantify that are absolute necessities to succeeding at higher levels. When your manager finally ask you to do X, you'll be nodding your head and saying, "yeah, totally, and here's my progress on X." I think that the whole culture of the stack rank + fighting for scraps for their directs + a lack of visibility and input on what will justify a promotion is what scares of managers from engaging with their employees regarding career growth.Note, that I am not saying that I want a guarantee one way or the other. No, never: now, going back to that <> question above: if your boss is answering "No, never" then this is a red-alert moment for you. don't make enemies), change jobs about once every 3-4 years, and do your job reasonably wellfor a decade. Microsoft Software Engineering Manager salary levels ranges from 63 (SDE Lead) upto 80 (Corporate VP), with 80 (Corporate VP) level earning average salary of $4851k along with $3675k worth of stock options. Because, IMO, that is the jist of jcr's post. Doesn't matter 60 or 65, if you find the key to your boss, next level is in your pocket. B.Sc in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics, M.Sc in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics, PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics, Designing and implementing Software and Hardware Systems, Benchmarking and validating Software and Hardware Systems, Developing innovative solutions and publish papers and patents, Managing teams and keep track of progress, Predicting market trends, identifying market risks, Identifying future opportunities, preparing company roadmap. "The hardest point for me to bear is that I am young, capable of doing so much more, and absolutely dying to do more. I also don't know if this is the first step towards a lay-off, but for now, it seems we'll have jobs for a few more months.Ugh, not good, not good at all>I am a partner. I was in a group that was reorging constantly and there were frequent management changes, so it took all of the political skill I'd developed over the years to focus my GM on giving me that fucking promotion. Are you sure you know what your boss wants? The education qualifications required for various roles for Technical track are: The highest job title in management track in Microsoft is "Vice President (VP)". Perhaps someone can explain to me how you get successfully promoted without your boss's support. I am not saying the manager is trying to sabotage, but when push comes to shove will you get the impactful project. You need to consider how you can compete with the pizza eating 25 year olds that don't have a life and work 80 hours a week. You can forge a great partnership and accomplish a lot. The average entry-level engineer or program manager will have a total compensation of $125,665. YES, life is unfair.At the end, mastering 'soft skills' will help anyone: even someone at 59. I went from level 62 to level 65 in that time. You can wait 24 months to gain all the credibilty & visibilty & trust again that needs to intersect precisely with your new leaderships ability to argue you on the stack proficiently. "You might be too smart or have ideas that come from somewhere outside of Redmond which makes you very dangerous and not Microsoft material. Will a L63 have direct reports and/or manage v-? Typically if you can accomplish only 5 such improvements, it would be hard for your manager not to consider you for next step. I made sure I was the guy you wanted to call when the server crashed in the lab with a crazy callstack and no repro.Second, OWN the features. I suspect the former because there's no point in a manager telling you that you got promoted when you didn't. Got lucky on that one!!!! Mar 26, 2018 2 You don't get your money by snatching it out of Google or Apple's hands, you get it by convincing your customers to hand it to you.Do you want to know why Vista is such an unmitigated disaster? But if you start when you think you are ready and work with your manager toward the goal, you'll get there. That is, its hard to define, but I know it when I see it. It doesn't matter what you want - you aren't the one deciding when you get promoted. It is my observation that the most common place we see disillusioned learners in the product groups at MS is at level 62. After all, they are thinking through if you will be a good peer and will be easy to work with (and make their lives better in some way). Ask yourself: what fraction of your job do you actually enjoy? While I lost a few people who drove great results in that level, overall it was good for their career and also MS over time. Also, never ascribe to malfeasance what may simply be due to incompetence. Proficient in product delivery, business & cost transformation, supplier management, client relationships and growth opportunities Working extensively at senior board level to deliver high value . A Principal-level employee at Microsoft is someone who drives strategic efforts in their area of expertise. take the time to find a mentor that is a great fit for you and the issue you're working on. I say this because I have seen really smart people shunned because of 'house-on-fire' attitudes even when they were dead right. All these comments apply generally to any matured company and life in general. Ah, dude, my boss is in the way of my promotion. I'm interested in reading your perspective and what advice you'd give to someone new to the company looking at a career path similar to your own. Strong operations professional with a Master's Degree focused in Project Management from Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto . It's really not that complicated. Getting constant feedback throughout is valuable as you can re-align and re-adjust in an agile way so that you are not shocked at review time that you have completely missed that promotion. This will only lead us to a healthy and balanced distribution of levels across genders. I'd like to see a transition plan from you in 2 days". Oracle. Finally, take heart and dont become too discouraged if this is taking a little longer than it seems like it should. Alternately, you can increase the scope of your own job and justify an increased level.So the only real question is, what do you need to do differently at the higher level? Less than a year is fast, but not unheard of. You're in competition with everyone else in your org in your CSP. If you're saying "Ah, dude, my boss is in the way of my promotion" then all I have to say is "Duuuude, your boss is the way to your promotion." I drove my 59-62 agenda with an iron fist and it didn't matter so much that I didn't play well with others or work to help other teams who were struggling.I became a manager during that time and had a year of major hiccups while trying to break through to 63 -- all of a sudden the fact that I was a unilateral force was working *against* me and not for me. Kathleen Hogan. Microsoft's senior positions start at level 63, according to the crowdsourced tech compensation website Levels.fyi. -- Business Transformation Executive with demonstrated experience in managing and implementing large transformation programs through all levels of the organization in order to build growth, grab new market opportunities or reduce costs.<br><br>- Building on Solid experience in Functional roles (Sales, Marketing, Delivery Operations) to drive those programs <br>- Sales Oriented Business . But if your manager is undervaluing your work, and *that* is the factor that is making you unhappy, you can fix that. Think about why they're able to do that.-jcr. Embrace whatever people are saying are your flaws.