
What to know to get promoted quickly in Big Tech - pcannons
https://philippcannons.com/what-you-should-know-about-how-corporations-work/
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kordlessagain
> Error establishing a database connection

Know database connections to get promoted quickly in Big Tech!

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javajosh
Yes, clearly being able to keep your blog running when it's on the HN homepage
is NOT one of necessaries.

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pcannons
Touché

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ricardobeat
The original title was "What you should know about how corporations work" and
that made a lot more sense. There is very little about promotions in the
article.

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pcannons
Personally I cannot assign importance to something until I understand the
structure it operates within. Hence the preamble to the simple point about
promotions in the article.

I wish someone had told me when I was a starry eyed college kid entering the
workforce that by focusing on this one strategic decision, I could have gotten
so much more out of the many 100 hour work weeks of execution. e.g.: Someone
working long shifts at a restaurant is just as hard working as Elon Musk, the
scale of Elon’s impact is just much bigger.

More practically, the original title got one upvote because it didn’t focus on
the value of the article.

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Ozzie_osman
> If you work in the part of the company chasing one of the top 6 initiatives
> of the CEO, you’ll usually get promoted fast if you do well. You’ll also get
> paid a lot.

Sure, but those initiatives can suddenly change when the CEO changes or when
the CEO changes strategy. Whole divisions can get shut down overnight.

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Speakeasys
I recently was laid off while working on one of the initiatives the director
had going. They hired a CEO who brought all his initiatives and mine happened
to fall outside of the new initiatives. They let myself, another developer,
and the director go all at the same time.

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fallingfrog
That’s very typical, the new ceo will usually try to put their stamp on a
company by firing a bunch of the close allies of the previous ceo, cancelling
a bunch of their favorite projects, and generally just marking their
territory. Same as kings used to do on ascending the throne, it’s all about
personal brand.

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wooptoo
I like the bit about the CEO. He's the one you should be dealing with
_directly_ should the shit hit the fan. Not the HR department, not your line
manager. They're just peons. Also keep in mind the CEO might be concealing all
sorts of stuff from the board. Wish I had known this years ago. Excellent
article.

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nulptr
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:21xq0j...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:21xq0jgfKEsJ:https://philippcannons.com/what-
you-should-know-about-how-corporations-work/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

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purplezooey
_The better you are at quality and support the more money you’ll be paid to
stick around and protect._

If only that were true?

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pcannons
I should have probably phrased that better. At one end your skills might get
commoditized and outsourced to somewhere for 1/10th of the cost.

But at the other end, think the person in charge of when Google search goes
down in Europe. Or when Azure crashes for Disney. Or when AWS goes down for
Netflix. How much do you think the people who are experts there get paid? I
know two people who make 7 figures doing jobs like that. They are linchpins.

