Career progression in product follows a skills pyramid: ICs (market), Directors (people), VPs (strategy), and CPOs (business vision). To get promoted, you must demonstrate proficiency in the skills required for the next level before you officially have the title.

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.

For his Principal Engineer promotion, the work alone wasn't enough. He identified critical leaders (VPs, Directors), proactively sought their mentorship, and held monthly check-ins. By the time the promotion cycle began, all key decision-makers were already aligned and supportive, making it a formality.

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.

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.

Actively pursuing a promotion often leads to frustration because it depends on factors outside your control. The path to growth and happiness is to focus entirely on maximizing your impact in your current role. Promotions and recognition will eventually follow as lagging indicators.

To assess an internal candidate's readiness for promotion, give them the responsibilities of the higher-level role first. If they can succeed with minimal coaching, they're ready. This approach treats promotion as an acknowledgment of proven performance rather than a speculative bet on future potential.

Chuck Robbins argues against formal interviews for internal promotions, stating that years of observation are more telling than a brief meeting. The ultimate test for a promotion is whether peers would see it and agree it "makes perfect sense." Every day on the job is an interview for the next role.