While I am not a software developer, it sounds like our career paths have had the same trajectory, and I'm wondering what the common factor is across industries.

I work in automation (mostly) as a lead tech and professional troubleshooter because I am familiar with a wide and varied amount of automation technologies. I've met plenty of people over the years who have much more advanced skills than myself, but never go beyond doing more than parts swapping on a workbench, which leaves me scratching my head.

Over the last few years, I have listened carefully to what people around me say about my work, and while it is good gas for the ego, I have notice that's not the likely reason I get promoted so quickly. While I can walk into a problem and know how to apply different processes to figure out what to do almost reflexively at this point, the real focus seems to be that I take ownership of the process.

Bit of a buzzphrase, "ownership of the process," but the short explanation is that a little planning, accountability, resourcefulness and communication seems to get you a lot further than just knowing what to do in any given situation. Employers like that because they now have department manager they can rely on, and team members like that because someone else is taking responsibility so they don't have to.

You're good at code, obviously, but if you zoom out on your work a bit, are you also bringing a bit of accountable authority to the table? That may be the real reason why you move up so quickly, or at least something that greases the gears so that can happen faster for you than, say, an equally skilled colleague.

I wonder how much empathy plays into it? I’ve trended towards teach lead roles and not that I feel my code is necessarily special, I think it’s clean enough and concise at times - occasionally some ASCII art slips in of course…

But what I have noticed across multiple companies is that I offer feedback for reviews that is thorough when it counts - I may pick apart a huge PR with lots of notes and suggestions, and that’s because the change has the potential to impact large systems. I also explain why, and I ask questions of the engineer to make sure I know why they did a thing because maybe I missed something.

I also talk to managers, product, and design, and do a lot of listening. Often times people are working towards a goal, or working against some barrier to getting their goals met, and being able to listen and understand them lends to a lot of credibility. And when you do a lot of that listening, you inherently gain a good amount of understanding of the systems - both technical and human.

When the time comes for someone to say “we should have a new lead on X”, the people that listen and engage tend to rise to that position naturally.

I think accountability and empathy go hand in hand to some degree - by owning something, you’re also saying “I understand how my work might impact other things, other people, and I want to reassure you that I have your back”.