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?