Speedrunning Guide: Junior to Staff Engineer in 3 years

This is a guest newsletter by Ryan Peterman, who was promoted from Junior to Staff Engineer in 3 years at Meta.

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Once you land that first software engineering job, the next big question becomes: how do you get promoted? Many engineers fall into the day-to-day routine of writing code without a clear idea of how to grow their careers.

This happened to me. At my first job at Amazon, I landed code without knowing what I could do to grow my skills. I left that job within eight months because I felt I wasn’t growing as an engineer. Three years later, I made it to Staff Software Engineer at Instagram after tons of mentorship. Early on, I learned that being good at coding wasn’t enough to get promoted; you have to think strategically about your career and often need to develop new behaviors to move up.

In this article, I’ll share everything that helped me fast-track my way up the ladder, from developing the right mindset to making key moves that many overlook. Even if rapid growth isn’t your goal, this guide has learnings for all tech career paths.

In this guide:

• Software Engineering Levels

• An Algorithm for Promotion

• Junior (IC3) → Mid-level (IC4)

• Mid-level (IC4) → Senior (IC5)

• Senior (IC5) → Staff (IC6)

• Luck & Parting Words

Software Engineering Levels

Note: “IC” = “Individual Contributor”