Elima Sugunan is a Senior Manager, Software Engineering at Perforce, where she builds and scales engineering teams and products from the ground up.
With experience across product and platform engineering, she works closely with engineers navigating growth, promotions, and leadership transitions. Elima is passionate about helping engineers make their impact visible, build confidence in their careers, and grow with clarity and ownership – without losing sight of the human side of tech.
In tech, there’s a common myth that if you just keep your head down and write great code, someone will eventually notice and hand you a promotion. That isn’t how it works. Promotions aren’t handed down; they are business decisions.
To move to the next level, you have to stop just shipping what’s assigned and start acting like an owner. This means shifting your focus from working hard to making an impact. If you want the title, you have to prove you’re already doing the job.
“Your work doesn’t speak for itself. You are its spokesperson.”
Prepare: Move from Effort to Impact
Promotions are earned through measurable impact, not just hours logged. To get ahead, map your current work against the expectations of the next level. If you don’t know what those expectations are, find your company’s engineering ladder or ask your manager – t’s your roadmap.
Think in three areas:
Business Impact
What did you deliver that helped your product or company succeed? Anchor your work to business goals, roadmaps, or outcomes – not just tasks completed.
Example:
“I developed a new recommendation feature that increased user engagement by 15%, aligning with our product roadmap goal to boost retention in Q1.”
Engineering Excellence
How did you elevate the technical or operational standard? This is where code quality, architecture, reliability, and process intersect.
Examples:
“One microservice was slowing down under heavy load. I analysed the queries, optimized them, and improved response time by 30%.”
“I helped migrate a service to a more scalable architecture, reducing deployment errors by 40% after tightening our CI/CD process.”
The Catalyst Effect
How did you make the team stronger? This is about being a multiplier – sharing knowledge and practices that help the whole team move faster and succeed together.
Example:
“I documented API usage guidelines and ran a short walkthrough for the team. This helped others integrate the service faster and reduced implementation errors.”
Don’t just help – amplify your team’s impact.
The Founder Mindset: Career as a Zero-to-One Product
Treat your career like you’re building something from scratch. You don’t just write code, you define the vision, identify the value, and communicate progress to stakeholders. Regardless of role or level, you are the primary driver of your own growth.
Apply that same mindset to your promotion:
- You are the product: Focus on constant iteration. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about taking the initiative to sharpen your skills before the business requires it. Look for ways to learn and stretch -even outside formal programs.
- Leadership are your stakeholders: They are looking for a return on talent. Don’t just show them what you did; show them why it mattered to the business. When you align your growth with the company’s goals, everyone wins.
- Ownership is the default: Founders don’t wait for a roadmap. They identify high-impact gaps – whether it’s technical bottlenecks or broken processes – and fix them before they become bigger problems.
When you think this way, growth stops being a passive event and becomes an intentional choice.
Build Your Advocacy Network: The Power of Four
Technical excellence is the baseline. Visibility and support are what move promotion conversations forward. You need allies who back your growth from different angles.
- The Manager (The Coach): Works with you day-to-day and aligns your performance with company goals. They are your primary advocate – ensure they have the evidence they need to win the case for you.
- The Mentor (The Guide): Outside your reporting line, mentors help you see the bigger picture, navigate unwritten rules, and think clearly about long-term growth.
- The Sponsor (The Door-Opener): Mentors talk to you. Sponsors talk about you—in rooms where decisions are made. They advocate for you during planning and calibration.
- The Cross-Functional Partner (The Trust-Builder): Product managers, designers, peers, or business partners matter more than you think. When promotion discussions happen, leaders often ask: “What is it like to work with them?” Strong cross-functional trust – from peers to partners -makes your promotion case much stronger.
“A coach prepares you, a guide shows the path, and a door-opener gets you in the room—but cross-functional trust ensures you’re invited to stay.”
Master the Ask: The Business Case, Not the Favour
When it’s time to talk about promotion, use ownership language. You’re presenting evidence, not asking for permission.
The Pitch:
“Over the last six months, I’ve been operating at the next level by leading the redesign of a core service, improving performance and reliability, and helping onboard two teammates on the new stack. Based on this impact, I’d like to discuss formalizing my transition to the next level.”
If the answer is “not yet,” get clarity:
- “What specific outcomes do I need to demonstrate?”
- “Is this a performance gap or a timing constraint?”
- “Can we check in again in 30 days to review progress?”
A “no” isn’t a dead end – it’s a request for more data. Get expectations written down to prevent scope creep on your promotion requirements.
Final Thoughts: The Work Stays With You
This isn’t just about a title – it’s about showing up and doing the work of the next level before the promotion conversation even starts. The goal is to make your impact so clear that the promotion is undeniable.
If the answer is “not yet,” don’t take it personally. See it as feedback you can act on. Sometimes the hold-up is due to factors you can’t influence, not a reflection of your value.
Remember: the skills you’ve built and the experience of problems you’ve solved belong to you. Every high-impact gap you’ve bridged and every process you’ve improved makes you a stronger engineer who knows how to make a real difference. That growth is yours to keep.
Now, go ship the next version of your career.
