This is obviously difficult to manage. I'm now off the meds, not seeing the psychiatrist, and living happily.Working at MS was both the best time in my life and the worst time. Additional pay could include bonus, stock, commission, profit sharing or tips. Thanks for starting this. Wish I this post and comments laminated about 10 years ago after I wasn't going to get rich off stock.My comment to add is to those who are put into situations of continual reorgs and want to achieve the 'Senior'. Incompetent People Really Have No Clue: If youre one of the people complaing about how youre not getting promoted because your mgr is incompetent and youre just as good as all those others who got promoted you could be right. With wide-eyed wonder he asked WHAT? I said whatever the @#$% your manager most needs you to do!6. L63 is very much an important milestone, and in tough-hiring times like these the following question has never been more important: "Will <> reach Level 63 during their career?". Know when your market worth changes with our verified salaries newsletter, See exactly how much your competitors pay. I believe that the most fundamental difference between level 62 and 63 is in the realm of EQ (emotional quotient, see the book Working With Emotional Intelligence" by Goleman). That is, its hard to define, but I know it when I see it. You must ask for a promotion when you think you are ready. A broad perspective matters.3) This is all about stack rank. Learn how this feature works. Chairman of the Board, Microsoft Corporation. Eventually you have to make that leap or you arent ever going to get your hands on that other bar. When someone gives you the hard advice to succeed, it's quite the gift. That's the wall you need to talk about, but the discussion would be very different than the L63 bump.And after 5+ years at L64, I finally just left. I will mis-direct and confuse you with hearsay. Is this confirmed? I am offered a job at L65 and job offer has a title Director on it! In this scenario, the senior director might have more responsibilities and be in charge of a larger part of the organization than a typical director. Second, the perspective of a different team helps you generalize about best practices and what works and doesn't work. As per Microsoft's job posting, the specific position requires over 8 years of experience so it pays high as well. But in an organization this large, how do you avoid title inflation ? I'm just going to try and emphasize a few points here:* As mentioned by many folks, it is important to own your career and hence plan you promotion, discuss it with your manager, and most importantly follow up on it. Maybe you are ready, but you and your manager can plan what would be the assignment that would show that you're ready. Maybe everybody's aware of being "in lockdown" and keeping their heads down? . Without soft skills, you can't make 64 and certainly no chance at 65.I've seen many people transfer into MCS, level up, and then transfer out basically using it as a boost. Advice from anyone at Microsoft for 10+ years is great to hear, but hard to follow. 3. Strategy and Product Leader for an omni-channel team encompassing blended physical-digital experiences that combine personalized services with customer relationship strengthening across 400- centers. similar to maybe how EY says senior manager is Director (pwc, kpmg) equivalent. How do you get the right job/work that will make the impact. If you can't ever figure it out, and if you can't become a "favorite underling", then it's time to find a different group with people you can better relate-to. New Senior Director Human Resources jobs added daily. If it does, are you demonstrating success at that next level already and do people know about it? Ability to solve problems independently is bad because if you don;t ask for help it reduces your visibility. You can each help each other.I've gone from 59 to 65 so far, but maybe what worked for me won't work for you. When does that year start? But if you think you should be promoted and your manager doesn't, you shouldn't sit and seethe -- you must understand what it will take. We've negotiated thousands of offers and regularly achieve $30k+ (sometimes $300k+) increases. Senior Account Executive | Director | Sales & Marketing. mini,time to start a new blog: maybe around current economy and msft. Kathleen Hogan. . As HR Director, Claire helps drive the outstanding business impact, cultural transformation, and growth of Microsoft in the UK. And I'm going to tell you right now, I'm 99.9% sure what needs to change is you. I just want to grow, and I am aware that it does not translate to a promotion always. The "how" now has broader impact. And what is happening now trying to move up after becoming a Dev Manager? Years ago we had a dev on my team who was very high IQ and very driven, but was driving his lead nuts. jcr said >Apple's about to ship Snow Leopard with no new features. That means, know what people think about you and what they don't. Wonderful. Next, advertise your new branching strategy in your peer groups. People who get stuck at the plateau are often referred to as disillusioned learners. Please help. Feedback is not detailed or actionable. .css-1uhsr4o{margin-right:8px;}Get Paid, Not Played. If they can, pay attention: They don't even know the area as well as your superiors, and you need to spend more time covering your bases. Because, except on the rare occasion, Microsoft and your team isn't going to change. The good thing in most teams here is that if you persist, you will get there. The skills are different, and part of the failure of this company is exactly due to losing star individual contributors that become mediocre leads, in all disciplines. Do it nicely. If you want to advance and you are not a "favorite underling", your first and most important job is this: figure out how to become a "favorite underling". I am working towards it would say am there 75% of the way. Healthcare is the most common skill found on a senior director resume. Most organizations will do promo/slate through a consensus/stack rank process. Find the right team and manager.2. "haven't seen nothing yet" is a fairly common construction. Grammar nitpicking is fine when it's accurate. Fourth, repeat ad infinitum. "I actually find the content of this post to be superficial, fairly naive and not reflective of my experience having moved through the ranks from 59 to >65. for people, who might claim that they do all this and still cant progress.. dude, either you are in wrong group or you have not introspected / taken feedback well or you are missing the whole thing by a mile. SAP, Go to company page Even if you don't leave, make no mistake, I'll be building a backfill slate for your role just in case. If the answer is regularly a 'yes', then this clearly is an indication that you are ready. If you have potential and luck then you can achieve promotion velocity of one level every 18 months.Finally, heres my advice for who aspire for L62->L63 jump: Look around. I'm not looking for any off-topic comments let alone woe-be-me comments - remember that slap thing? HC-freeze is already in motion, as is serioius savings in all FSC/COS - only thing still not explored is layoffs. Everything else is irrelevent or works against your promotion. Now read over your answer. During that time I had two good to great managers. Ask any old mainframer what it was like to be an IBM customer back in the day. You will not know the difference.Steve Steve Steve given the state of the company, are you sure you don't have anything else more urgent to do? I think that everyone has a bad year or 2 and you should not get worried about spending a lot of years in one level unless you have been on the same team for a long time.So my advice is1. Let's Hear it for the Boy! I definitely want to read more soon.Sincerely yoursSteave Markson. You may not need them to get from 59->60, but if you're good at them, it'll make your rise much quicker. That's the easy way out. Let's apply that stick to cronyism and punishment based management practicies. Their self criticism spurs them to improve. All the money making groups cut 10% of the work force. Why cannot we have our address title reflect our level as everybody else in the company?Maybe because you are so overleveled (maybe not you personally, but MSN as whole), your bosses doesn't want rest of the company to make ruckus about that injustice (I have seen people moving from SDE II in Windows to MSN and getting promotion-on-transfer to SENIOR SDE, and they were not even hard-core devs). I've been at 59 for going on four years now, and was told by my manager over 2 years ago that I was totally ready and qualified for promotion to L60, but that "there wasn't enough budget" (yeah right), and this was in *Office* (a group which is clearly strapped for cash, I guess). Chief Executive Officer and Director. The microsoft people have already decided you're not a good 'fit'. Why cannot we have our address title reflect our level as everybody else in the company? The skip level is totally nonchalant to her ways. I started at 59 and just got promoted to 63 a couple months ago. Microsoft employees make an average base salary of $208k & a total compensation of $280k. Especially since the days of job title/level transparency.People should not forget that many times, higher levels do not equal higher pay. If so, then you're going to have a hard time finding senior IC spots anywhere. And how do you represent yourself as a leader and influencer when you are in a room with 6 other people vying for the exact same thing? That's awesome. Help Your Manager (and your team) Be Successful: No one has more influence over whether you get promoted than your immediate mgr. How do you make sure you do a good job but not too good of a job.Also higher levels will tend to require you to do things you may not like. Happy hunting. Sometimes the answer is, "well, we'll see" and other times the answer is, "if they'd only stop doing X and start doing Y on a sustained basis, I could see it". Skilled in Surfer 8, MS Project, Primavera, Microsoft Excel, Analytical Skills, Customer Service, Customer Success Management, Vendor Management and Sales. You havent seen nothing yet. How do levels compare? My manager told me a while ago that I was about to get one. I've been 3.5 years at 62 and re-orged every year in mobile.Any ideas on how to carry greats results of one role into another through a re-org. Sad but true Mini et al addressed this with the descriptions of the distinguishing traits you need to develop and demonstrate. As someone who left MS @ L63 - and supposedly tracking strongly to L64 - and who has seen a lot of questionable promos occur, I think it's fair to say that the rise to "Senior" follows a slighly skewed distribution curve in that in the largest bucket case, you can probably see that L63 was warranted.However, on either end of the distribution, by which I mean people who easily obtained it and people who seriously struggled to obtain it, there are some disturbing anomalies that are difficult to explain away.You might say, "I can live with the corner cases" and I would agree that optimizing for those isn't worthwhile.BUT! L68 is partner, or you may see GM. Senior directors are tenured members of an organization who are considered part of the leadership or executive team, in which they represent their department or division.