Front End Devs Get All The Glory

A common problem in software engineering is visibility. To get ahead in your career, the colleagues who you report to, must see all the positive work you are doing, and find themselves in need to solve a problem they have, that requires you and for you to feel valued enough to stay.

What if, the kind of work you are interested in goes un-noticed?

Here's the Rub

As a predominantly backend software engineer, sometimes it feels when a front-end dev adds a gradient to a button, people treat them like they are Leonardo da Vinci himself, but when I make excellent architectural decision that shaves 800ms off an API call and nobody notices.

Even worse! Nobody cares!

My Solution

Every time i do something well, I bring it up to my manager at every standup, at every catchup (or 1-2-1) meeting.

The Truth About My Career

I have been promoted in an organisation once in my career, using my solution. Most of the other promotions was by jumping to an other organisation and demanding i higher payed title. The downsides of this strategy is, that if you do it two often, people become suspicious, and will choose not to hire you. It turn out that organisations prefer those who have stayed in the role for more than 2 years. As devs, we are told, that in silicon valley that is like a lifetime. Everywhere else though, sees that as a short period of time.