How to Succeed Once Hired?

6 points by athrow 3 years ago | 8 comments

Are there any practical, 'Cracking the Coding Interview' esque books for succeeding in the tech company (promotions, personal branding, respect etc) once hired? Ideally something that touches on office politics, what to focus on, how to succeed in performance reviews, communications.

borissk 3 years ago |

It depends on what your definition of success is and where you're hired. There are plenty of books describing the way that each of the big tech companies work. Also plenty of books on how to get promoted to say a management position.

athrow 3 years ago | |

Success: getting through the probation period, not getting on PIP, getting recognition for work done, setting myself up for promotion. I’ve read a couple of accounts of people getting sacked on Team Blind due to not speaking up in meetings and various other reasons which I’m guessing could be avoided.

sideproject 3 years ago |

I recently moved to a Head of Engineering role and bought myself this book - https://www.amazon.com.au/First-Days-Updated-Expanded-Strate... - "First 90 days". It... helped. Nothing was really a surprise, but it did put some structure and strategy into what I needed to do to make sure that I transition well and... well.. to a certain extent "play the game".

adityam582y 3 years ago | |

I am reading this book at the moment, recommended by my mentor. Though it's so far good. However, I find it more attuned towards people with leadership roles. Yes, I do want to become a leader in my new company one day, but it feels a bit tangent.

I have order another book for the same purpose to get insights from two angles.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56383241-the-unspoken-ru...

athrow 3 years ago | |

Thank you, I’ll check it out.

BerislavLopac 3 years ago |

I doubt it, as the possible environments and organisations can be so wildly different. Small vs large, startup vs mature, commercial (e.g. a profit-oriented company) vs non-commercial (government org, research facility, academia...) etc; and on top of that it is hugely the factor of the fostered culture, and ultimately the individuals you interact with on a daily basis.

adityam582y 3 years ago | |

Yes, it's right to some great extent. However, overall frameworks or useful frame of references do stay similar. The book "First 90 days" and "Unspoken rules" do talk about finding these similarity and differences to keep in mind, while starting in a new organization.

GianFabien 3 years ago |

I recommend: "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli. tldr; Make your bosses look good.

Obviously you have to do your work very well and be aware of the various political machinations in play. The tricky thing about promotions is to never be a threat to those above the role you wish to be promoted into. Personal branding is good, but should never eclipse that of those who can promote you.