How do promotions work at MSFT for PMs?
This question is about the PM job family. Curious to know how promotions work at Microsoft. What is the process? At Amazon there has to be a detailed document making the case and peer feedback from a number of people (depending on level). Without written feedback, it is impossible to promote. Is feedback and a doc required at MSFT too? Are promotions scrutinized as much as those are at Amazon? Finally, what is the minimum time period you have to spend in a level in order to be considered for promotion to the next level? Thanks.
Peer feedback, sphere of influence, level appropriate projects , cross workgroup influence , visibility and luck ... Sometimes the BS PMs get more visibility, but IMO good technical PM skills will win out
Give this guy another year or so and he’ll at least recognize he is delusional ^
Uh well msft isn't really discipline specific about promotions. All employees fill out a "connect", as well as request peer feedback multiple times a year. This is the written feedback you speak of. Your manager then needs to make your case with other leads and leadership team. This is where things like visibility and high impact work is important. Even awesome work can go unnoticed if it isn't tied to business results. I find pms can navigate the promotion process in general better than most engineers at msft due to the nature of work.
Visibility to skip level and good relationship with manager. I've seen quite untalented PMs quickly promoted to principal in WDG. As others have noted, good work and performance isn't a guarantee. Managing relationships in my experience is the primary skill required for PM promotion.
Same way all promotions at Microsoft work, 4 easy steps: 1) Kiss your managers ass, but not too much 2) Kiss your skip manager's ass, this is where you use tongue (like really get up there) 3) Stab your manager & the rest of your team in the back (this seems to work best if the team is productive & making good/innovative software) 4) Profit
It’s reality
What kind of timeline should one expect for moving up to level 64 if hired at level 63?
They should never heppen
Thank you for trolling.
Why is there always so much PM hate. - Incoming PM at MSFT.