I’ll also point out something I learned the hard way. Junior folks take note: Career progression, if important to you, is something you absolutely must ask about and confirm during your interview. Some employers want to hire you as a mid level engineer and have zero intention of ever promoting you past that. You need to be able to identify and walk away from those companies. You also need to take responsibility for it. Your manager won’t. For a long time I had this romantic notion that if only I did a really awesome job, someone would notice and career growth would happen. It just doesn’t work this way. You need to take direct action.

I remember several exit interviews where I told my managers that one of the reasons I’m leaving was no upward career movement. They looked shocked, like they couldn’t imagine that would be important! Maybe they were legitimately surprised, I dunno. I’ve also had managers say things like: “oh trust me, you don’t want to get promoted or go into management, it’s so much stress!” They will try to gatekeep and you need to push through that.