You forgot "never ask for a promotion".The one other thing that helped me go from L59 through >L64 was an absolute dedication to the strongest leaders, one level at a time. and is willing to take a chance on someone whose interview indicates they are ready for next level. great post. I know many that purposely work for Microsoft as contractors just for this reason. It sounds fishy. Those teams I used to despise as a L60, and only tolerate as a 63? No manager can bail you out of "bad brand jail" past L625. Moved to a role where I could see headroom and also where I could set specific commits and accountabilities with the GM, which I then exceeded and moved to L63 in '04. Ultimately humans make decisions either by heart or brain. A Senior Director gets a basic salary package of $190,000, which gets as high . But, if you have the possibility of finding a position that you will really enjoy, where your goals and those of Microsoft are fairly close, then your long-term potential will be higher. Without soft skills, you can't make 64 and certainly no chance at 65.I've seen many people transfer into MCS, level up, and then transfer out basically using it as a boost. It inspired me to write the following dissertation on the subject in hopes that it will be helpful. We have to reduce billions of dollars of cost. Be nice, and clear in your communications. Amy Hood. The money losing groups hires. . 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. Senior-level Marketing Executive with experience in the consumer and B2B industry. There are not a lot of options at that point. Here's how to find it. In the beginning, I volunteered for these tough areas that no one else wanted and over time, my brand became the fix it guy. Many 62s (and 63s) make substantially more than 64s. So all you're telling me is I can't count on you so why should I? YES, there are people who are awful at all three and still succeed. Because, except on the rare occasion, Microsoft and your team isn't going to change. Think about why they're able to do that.-jcr. Unless you're an asshat, in which case see mini's comment about slapping yourself around and listening to what other's think about you.And in those huge orgs with all the noise it is really easy for folks to rest and *ahem* vest, so you are overlooked by default.The key as mini and others have stated is finding the tech and team you love and everything flows from there (because you will be so excited you will go home and work another 4 hours every night examining customer feedback, competitive products, etc. 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. Why? PROFESSIONAL SKILLS & HIGHLIGHTS OF QUALIFICATIONS Over 20+ years of experience working in large-scale real-time corporate environments Able to communicate concepts and details to clients, development team and testing team Excellent organization and communication skills, both written and verbal: clear and concise Knowledge of computer development software across multiple platforms . on this one. Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. > Lots of very true points. Do a brownbag for your VP level group, record it and send out the link to everyone. For example, see http://www.intropsych.com/ch07_cognition/learning_curve.html. Therefore, our need for people who can collaborate across their own team, across disciplines, across org boundaries is greater than ever before. You should NOT be looking to get more money to stay in a job you don't like. So one big part is do good work, but another is don't do bad work.I think it's a very good idea to ask for a promotion. 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. i asked him if he knew the absolute most important thing for him to do to get promoted. I think there's only one thing I would add, from the perspective of having been promoted from L59 to L64 in a 6-year period in one org (I left MS in 2006).Sometimes things within an org will turn to complete crap, and either there's not an option to leave or you may not want to. L63 takes a bit longer but is also fast. The microsoft people have already decided you're not a good 'fit'. Had I only known this info when I started at Microsoft. Despite the fact you may be totally right, you can inadvertently be viewed as a negative person.Although your bosses are probably aware of the problems, they might be overwhelmed by the scope of the situation, and start getting annoyed at you for being the person always reminding them about the flaws. I've seen some extremely senior developers propose solutions to problems, but be totally unconvincing. It is true you can always do that, go to Google, go to ABC, or whatever. New Senior Director Human Resources jobs added daily. This is the first year I have spent more than 2 years at a level (L61) and still not gotten a promotion. The news is in. Learn How to State Your Case and Earn Your Raise, Climb the Ladder With These Proven Promotion Tips, A Guide to Negotiating the Salary You Deserve, How to Prepare for Your Interview and Land the Job. It's a very rare thing that you'll find a manager who gives you the kind of actionable feedback you need to succeed without doing a whole lot of sleuthing and groundwork of your own to fill in the blanks. It's a lot better than folks being ambivalent about your success or failure, right? If you have a good manager he/she will ensure the relevant peers know all about it. The problem is you can't tell if you've done something to piss him off or if he's doing it because he has to. Help make it more accurate by adding yours. How many has Live hired this year and OneCare gets cut? I made it to L63 in a year (I was probably under leveled when I arrived). Avoid long-winded multi-point e-mails, boil down your points as succinctly and efficiently as possible. I have had 3 positions in the past 8 years and best advise i can give is NETWORKING. They literally lived in GM's office for half a year to get the promo from L64 to L65.3. You can each help each other.I've gone from 59 to 65 so far, but maybe what worked for me won't work for you. 3. Grammar nitpicking is fine when it's accurate. As for my own history, successful strategies have followed 3 major buckets:From 59 --> 62 (I started as a 10 in the old system) I simply kicked ass and took no prisoners. Here are my thoughts on the Level 62 to Level 63 transition in the product groups: 1. I think that everyone has a bad year or 2 and you should not get worried about spending a lot of years in one level unless you have been on the same team for a long time.So my advice is1. This slighlty contradicts some of the other posts. This is a problem, at least up to level 65. Sometimes leaving MS is good. So far, I haven't been successful. There are 12 Directors in my sub and over 1000 people all scoping to one day be a Lvl 63reality, most people will leave before they get that far. Those people are almost all Level 62's with few prospects. Find out if you have a positive trajectory in the stack ranking. Managers plan out promotion timeframes far in advance. The general consensus is why get rid of someone who is happy doing their job and can do it better than anyone else. To anonymous who has spent 3.5 years in role at MS. You're already blacklisted. These turtles gets promoted eventually just based on time spent at MS and because they werent doing anything wrong even though they dont really meet CSP criteria. My first year I thought for sure I would sit at L61 for another year, but to my surprise I was promoted to L62 without even a full FY under my belt. I'm now off the meds, not seeing the psychiatrist, and living happily.Working at MS was both the best time in my life and the worst time. It's hard for L63. Folks, Im really encouraged by this post and the focus on trying to help make others great. You can work hard and grind it out. We discussed progress at least once a month. Say B.In a perfect case, B will have 10 devs to transfer to A but when that happen B will be left with 5 testers and 2 PMs. When she finally left the company four years ago things improved greatly. Related Searches:All Senior Director Salaries|All Microsoft Salaries. I am going through some finanical hardships and is getting the level changed is the only way for a salary increase? Ive seen many people who didnt quite fit at MS go off and be very successful at other companies, starting their own biz, changing careers, by finding a better fit for themselves. Its a natural consequence of the learning curve. First let's set the expectations right for this quarter and possibly the next: The budgets for promos are shrunk almost everywhere. Experienced Digital Transformation & creative leader with a strong executive presence, experienced in creating value, building relationships & consensus across board-level client executives that . (Not). mini,time to start a new blog: maybe around current economy and msft. Being irreplaceble is bad because you spend more times on coding/fixing bugs and there is less time to work on your visibility. Satya Nadella. I have known some that do what is barely enough for "achieve" just because it is safe. Especially since the days of job title/level transparency.People should not forget that many times, higher levels do not equal higher pay. Email@ elliereinker@gmail.com | Call@ 330-554-0249. My manager told me a while ago that I was about to get one. They have commitments to grow their employees. The downside to this view within the Microsoft culture is that you are always expected to keep climbing the ladder even if you are content with your current job and a solid performer in it. If you send a brownbag invitation to your VP level group then you know your VP is getting it. What advice do you have to pass on? Nothing you do is good, all you get is criticism. I left eight years after that when I realized that L66 wasn't going to happen for me.The bottom line: If your boss isn't pushing for you, get them on your side or leave the group. Unless you know for sure that your boss's answer is an immediate "Absolutely!" Second, the perspective of a different team helps you generalize about best practices and what works and doesn't work. Software development at MS has become more complex and much more collaborative. You don't deliver products on your own -- you're usually building one system, one set of components that together make one successful (or unsuccessful) product.You can always, always find ways that make yourself, your manager, and your immediate team much more successful. "Shock and awe awaits" is correct. Third, working on that weakness DAILY (but not exclusively) until they overcome it. Answer to second question is never ever explicitly try to make yourself known to hierarchy above your manager. Someone that 20 years ago made something as complex as Notepad may today be a VP, whereas if you make Notepad today you may not even get a pat on the back. Discussion: First off, I'm going to be hard-core about comments here. The larger the team I work on the more I am bombarded with meetings and brown bags so someone can attempt to become the expert on design patterns, code coverage, or feature X. She partners very closely with colleagues to develop and drive the people strategy across the UK GEO. Like any organization MS has its own unique culture and cannot possibly be all things for all people. About 1/2 the team is staying, the other half is going to a number of different teams within the larger org. This is certainly the course that I took. If he thought you were trouble already, though, telling him you are thinking about leaving is like asking for a ticket out of there.7. I moved around 3 teams before I found one where I really enjoyed the technology and the people, and here I've flourished.So forget all the whining about politics and crap. Obviously, this is advice that you may not apply during the current hiring freeze, but keep it on your mind for the future.- At times the focus on the level may not be the most important strategy in the long term. "I actually find the content of this post to be superficial, fairly naive and not reflective of my experience having moved through the ranks from 59 to >65. Don't be afraid to ask your manager some very direct questions.Don't force the issue. A broad perspective matters.3) This is all about stack rank. In my co-workers case, they overloaded him with work and then documented anything that fell through the cracks until they had enough to get rid of him.I'm sure HR throttles managers when this is going on. Also, there's 2 ladder, management ladder and seniority ladder. Its performance is compromised by your pandering to the RIAA and MPAA. IBM pulled themselves out of their decline by focusing on their customers. It's because you were playing catch-up to Apple, and playing Machiavellian games with the media companies instead of working on the issues that your customers were complaining about.When will MS learn this lesson? Aren't those the things you are best at? You'd do well to read it again:Success in business comes from serving your customers, not about beating your competition. I haven't seen one single person getting hired below L63 in my group during last year. Given all that, the two things that are key to promotion are:1) Your relationship with your skip level manager. When does that year start? Anyone moved from Office to some other part of company? I am a [sic] HR manager. Your Recently Promoted L63 Peers: let's say you have at least one peer that in the past year or so has been promoted to L63. 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? I had an expectation to become principal this year. SAP, Go to company page For me, it will take some serious job switching to get there. If you are level 64 and above, your relationship with your GM or VP or above.2) Your visibility to the GM or VP. IMHO. VPs may well number in the hundreds at a huge place . I'm a level 62 dev trying to get to 63. Take it because it plays to your strengths. Many senior people, even VPs read this blog. Its, actually, quite a short list. That is the guy to beat. Facebook, Go to company page This way you have a more clear understanding of the seniority of that particular position and if you search for a group manager you will see the seniority distribution. weeks to find another position within the company, otherwise they are laid off.Think that's known as a "RIF" not a "layoff" butwhat do I know? Healthcare is the most common skill found on a senior director resume. MS is a carrot and stick culture with some heavy emphasis on stick. Who da'Punk I don't yet have any insight into what it might take to become a Partner, so I won't comment on that. I work in MSN and we still have no way to know the levels of our peers. You have to enjoy it, or else it'll come across as insincere, and you'll do a half assed job. Might as well fire those guys. Don't make promises to follow up on things and then let them drop. For example, in order to be promoted to level 62, you, as a level 61, must already perform at a level 62 level for a long time. The "how" now has broader impact. Don't obsess over what is in front of you. Got lucky on that one!!!! Seriously, your GM or VP owns the decision to do transparent titling. if they'd only stop doing X and start doing Y on a sustained basis, I could see it Microsoft: Citi Cuts Ests, Target On PC Slowdown. Benefits can add thousands of dollars to your offer. Experienced Operations & Project Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. agree with positive suggestions here. If you are considering leaving your team (or Microsoft) but think you could be persuaded to stay, be careful about how you present this to your manager. Eventually you have to make that leap or you arent ever going to get your hands on that other bar. The CSPs are a good attempt to define each level, but anyone who is looking at the CSPs and saying I do that, and that, , but Im not getting promoted is almost certainly missing the point.---I used to work in Devdiv, and I respect Kelly a lot. Most organizations will do promo/slate through a consensus/stack rank process. I suspect they'll make it someone's job to fix it, because it is widely held as a good idea in the company right now. He said this year he could only make strategic promotions, which sounded like promotions of people above 65. What an achievement! When I finally figured out how to play well with others and was able to show some major cross-group gains in addition to my own leet prod dev skills, that's when I became a 63.63 to 64 was a bit of a slog -- I'd say more like a full-frontal assault on lazy management, actually :). 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." Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. 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. 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 are the exception that you shouldn't wind yourself up about.And I don't want to focus on them anymore in this comment stream because it's not helpful. These two lines really serve to summarize the incoherent blithering that was jcr's post.Whoa, really? I think talking about level just confuses people as beyond US there is a different level system!L63 in the US is Senior (Level 60 in most of the other countries), well, moving to Senior is not such a big thing if you have experience, with more than 10 years in the industry I was hired at this level, now Senior II is just a matter of continuing contributing but the different comes to Principal (or lead), here is where you need to shine in order to succeed.Recommendation: Work not only towards your commitments but your managers as well As a former L65 (left MSFT about two months ago) I can say you are right on when it comes to understanding where your boss stands. Dont compete with them. Why does the company reward and keep these numbskull managers that hold people back? The Goldstars have already been canceled for this quarter.Next, I believe this post will most likely be useful for those who entered MS as intern/college hires. The details in front of you are just details. There are tons of Principles and L64s anyone can immediately recall who are not doing anything above or beyond their immediate teams. What does that look like in your mind? Its difficult to transfer to a new position because at a high level, what group is going to take you on to a new position you have no experience in. The scope and situations have become more and more challenging over time. Excuses and griping and bemoaning aren't the stuff that L63 contributors are made of. I knew it backwards and forwards, better than anyone else does now or ever will. Most gravitate to safe work that's in their comfort zone or work they enjoy. I will mis-direct and confuse you with hearsay. Let's connect and I will happily share more about my background and accomplishment and how I can contribute to the success of your organization. The way to get to a higher level is to increase the scope of your contributions.In our group (somewhere in STB), L63 seems to begin with having at least 2 reports. If you do not market yourself well, even if you are a superstar here at MSFT, your achievements might just go unrecognized (or they might be selectively recognized). I asked them direct questions about what I needed to do to get the next promotion. What do you do when your manager is an absolute b***h, a disgrace in meetings with other teams and an embarrassment on her good days? then the follow-up is: after what accomplishments and around when? Learn everything I can about the technology (I'm a PM and don't have a CS background so I work extra hard at this and ask lots of questions.)2. Also, go mine some of Dr. Brechner's Hard Code columns. Candidates should have a Ph.D. in Physics and a strong commitment to undergraduate education.