Mid level, two promotion cycles a year, told next cycle twice by a manager who has now left. The new manager inherited me four weeks ago and has no history to argue from. I like the company and would rather not leave to get a title, but I also do not want to be here for cycle seven.
Two cycles of next cycle from a manager who then left means you have zero cycles of evidence with the person who decides now. Restart the clock deliberately, get the criteria in writing, and set your own leaving date if it slips again.
I have sat on promotion committees at two companies and the failure mode is almost never the candidate being bad, it is the packet having no evidence of scope beyond the team. What gets people through is a written record of work that other teams depended on, with names of people outside your reporting line who will say so. Ask your new manager for the last successful packet at your level with names removed, and then work backwards from the gap. If they will not or cannot get you one, that itself is the answer.
Nobody has ever mentioned that these documents exist and are shareable. Asking on Monday.
Frame it as wanting to calibrate rather than as a complaint. Most managers will find one, and the ones who stall are telling you something useful.
I waited through five cycles and then left, and the new place hired me at the title I had been asking for with a meaningful raise attached. That worked, but I want to be honest about the cost: I gave up four years of context and relationships and spent about a year rebuilding them, and my first eighteen months were harder than anything I did while waiting. Leaving is a real option, it is just not a free one.
Mild disagreement with the go external advice. Internal promotion is usually faster if, and only if, you get the scope commitment in writing first. I asked for one specific project with cross team impact and an explicit sentence saying that delivering it would put me forward, got it in an email, delivered it, and was promoted on the next cycle. Without the email I would still be having friendly conversations.
@swatch_sonia · 6mo ago · 2 replies
Rough numbers from what I have seen: at a large company, two to four years at mid level is completely normal and three is not a red flag on its own. At a fifty person company it is more like eighteen months, because scope arrives faster than people do. Two things do change the odds materially, though: whether the level above you has open headcount, and whether your manager has ever got someone promoted. Neither has anything to do with your reviews.
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@peer_review_pat · 6mo ago
Open headcount at the level above is something I can find out in one conversation and had never thought to ask about.
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