Traits of a Software Leader - Issue #1

Overview

1. Topic: Promotion

2. Topic: Rest

3. Topic: Love

4. Story: Why Leadership is so Important

5. Topic of the Week: Hiring Top Talent Tips

Topic: Promotion

One of the most underrated ways to get promoted is simple: make your boss’s job easier.

Most advice about advancing—like becoming a better coder, getting an MBA, or mentoring junior colleagues—has its merits. However, these efforts often go unnoticed by your boss, especially if they don’t directly influence results or solve immediate problems. When your work isn’t visible or relevant to what your manager cares about, you can easily become:

If you want the “secret sauce” for rapid promotion, quickly figure out what’s important to your boss—and focus there. Many tasks developers consider “value-adds”—improving code, adding documentation, writing tests—are valuable, but customers (and often managers) don’t prioritize them unless something breaks.

So, what does matter to your boss? Usually, it’s things like: