To accelerate your career, focus on developing 'agency'. This means moving beyond assigned tasks to proactively solve unspoken, systemic problems. Instead of chasing high-visibility projects, look for the unaddressed issues that keep leaders up at night. Solving these demonstrates true ownership and strategic value.

Employees who strictly adhere to their job description are likely to remain in the same role for years. Going above and beyond, such as cleaning a boss's station to simply be in their orbit, builds a reputation and relationships that lead to unexpected opportunities.

Don't wait for a promotion or for the perfect role to be created. The most effective path to leadership is to proactively identify and take on critical, unowned tasks within your organization. This demonstrates value and allows you to carve out a new role for yourself based on proven impact.

The path to senior engineering levels is tied to the scope of your work's influence. Rather than explicitly seeking promotions, focus on projects with natural potential to grow from solving a team's problem to solving an organization's. The promotions will follow the impact.

To get promoted, excel at your 'day job' for credibility, but actively seek out the messy, hard problems others don't want. Raising your hand for these challenges demonstrates leadership, builds confidence, and earns you more responsibility.

When asking for a new role, employees succeed by demonstrating how the change will allow them to better contribute to the company's success, leveraging their natural strengths. A request perceived as being driven by ego or money is less likely to be granted. Working Genius provides the language for this constructive conversation.

The journey from individual contributor to VP of Product at Descript wasn't about formal promotions. Instead, it was a gradual process of adding so much value in product discussions that she was invited into progressively more strategic meetings. When you're consistently indispensable in "the room," you eventually belong there permanently.

Don't wait for a promotion or new job opening to grow. Proactively identify other teams' pain points and offer your expertise to help solve them. This proactive helpfulness builds relationships, demonstrates your value across the organization, and organically opens doors to new skills and responsibilities.

In fast-growing companies, your role constantly expands. To keep up, you must delegate responsibilities you've mastered (your 'Legos') to tackle new, larger problems. Hoarding tasks you're good at will ultimately limit your career growth and bury you under a pile of work you've outgrown.