Should I compare myself with other coworkers during a promotion

Question

I'm a little frustrated at my current work in terms of promotion. Hope to get some advice here.

Context: I have been at my current company for about 1 year as entry-level software engineer. Prior to this current position, I have been a software engineer for 3 years and promoted once. I moved to my current position because of more interesting work and better career.

Now it's has been a year, and I brought up promotion with my manager recently but got rejected. I tried to express that I'm delivering at the next level comparing to other people on the team. My manager mentioned that I shouldn't compare myself to others, and the fact that I bring up the comparison shows my incompetency. I'm frustrated because there is no clear definition of the expectation at each level. My manager mentioned that I should "own a product" for the next level, but I don't see that's case for the other engineers at the next level in the team. When I asked what doesn "own a product" mean, he mentioned product X and Y, which are not finished by a single person at my next level. I am convinced that I'm taking the same amount responsibilities as the folks on next level in the team, and I am eager and are trying to take more.

My questions are: 1. Should I compare myself with the folks at the same and next level for asking promotion and reward? Isn't the reward/promotion determined by horizontal comparison? Isn't the expectation at each level determined horizontally as well?

Maybe at the end of the day, I'm not the person to do the comparison, but rather it's up to my manager. How can I convince my manager that I am really delivering at the next level in future, besides being hardworking and really delivering?

Answer 1

You Manager is kind of right about the comparison thing, although not very nice if he really called you incompetent.

The thing is, if you compare yourself to others in your company, there are always things you may not know and may very well end up unfavorable in that comparison. Especially since your manager may value things differently than you (for example he may think it is more important that work is predictable, you may value quality higher)

What you should compare to is against your opportunities (what you could do/earn elsewhere)

Also as a rule of thumb responsibility is rewarded more than knowledge when it comes to wages. So your manager gave you a good hint in stating that you should make yourself product owner - It means you take full responsibility for a product and thus lessen the burden of things your superiors have to manage.

Follow his advice, and also explore your opportunities. Only when you know what you can get elsewhere, you can negotiate with real confidence!

It is also a good move to clearly state the goals and expectations of your further career development. Your manager should tell you if this is realistic within this organisation and tell you what is needed from you to get there. This should give an indication of the way forward.

Answer 2

I will answer a bit differently than Daniel.

I think that before asking a promotion to your manager it is a good idea compare yourself with others. However it is a wrong move to bring the fact to your manager.

If you perform better work than others, bring it in a way that you're doing more than what is initially expected of you and that you'd like to avance, not like "I worth more than them".

For the "product owner" thing, I will reference the following comment :

Thanks Daniel! I am fully aware of the fact that reward/promotion should be based on outcome rather than effort. When I asked my manager what does he mean by "owning a product", he asked me if I can deliver product X or product Y that my team owns from end to end. I answered no. The thing is, product X or product Y at my team is not delivered by a single person at the level

There is two possibilities here :

• He is really expecting you to doing a full project on your own. This is not what a "product owner" is.
• You have misunderstood what meant your manager : for me "product owner" is not a so clear word, maybe a project manager, or technical lead.

So you should first clear what your manager meant by that before accepting anything.