I'll tell you what amazes me: If you look at any reasonably large engineering organisation they will likely have guidance published from HR stating what the criteria are for different job roles, and they'll actually be pretty similar across different organisations.
You might be a Senior Software Engineer at one place but called a Staff engineer at another place, but they're broadly comparable, and the seniority criteria show a very clear progression: the more senior you get the more influence you are showing across the organisation, whether that means managing larger projects, mentoring other staff, consulting with other teams on best known practices, or influencing other parts of the company inter-discplinary projects.
Almost every large organisation will have a neat table telling you exactly what attributes you need to show. They all show that progression - more influence on the organisation as a whole.
And yet every single review cycle there's always a portion of engineers who think they deserve a promotion because their personal work was high quality. It's like they haven't read the job spec of the job they're applying for. It's amazing.
You might be a Senior Software Engineer at one place but called a Staff engineer at another place, but they're broadly comparable, and the seniority criteria show a very clear progression: the more senior you get the more influence you are showing across the organisation, whether that means managing larger projects, mentoring other staff, consulting with other teams on best known practices, or influencing other parts of the company inter-discplinary projects.
Almost every large organisation will have a neat table telling you exactly what attributes you need to show. They all show that progression - more influence on the organisation as a whole.
And yet every single review cycle there's always a portion of engineers who think they deserve a promotion because their personal work was high quality. It's like they haven't read the job spec of the job they're applying for. It's amazing.