The farewell message goes out on a Friday. The director who pulled you onto the platform project, who mentioned your name in the calibration meeting and told you quietly that you were on track for the next level, is leaving for another company. You send a warm reply and feel, underneath it, a small drop in your stomach.
That feeling is accurate. A lot of what moves a career forward happens in rooms you are not in, and somebody in those rooms has been speaking for you. From next month nobody is. Your work has not changed. The number of people who will describe it when it counts has just gone down by one.
Most people respond by doing nothing and hoping their record speaks for itself. Records do not speak. People speak about records, and the new people in those rooms have never seen yours.
Move in the first few weeks, while your champion is still reachable and still remembers the detail. Ask them for half an hour before they go. Not for a favour. For their honest view. Where do they think you stand? Who else has seen your best work? What would they tell your next advocate if they could? Write the answers down.
Then put your case in writing for your own manager. A short page with the projects, the outcomes and what you are aiming for next. If your champion was not your manager, your manager may know less about your best work than you assume, because the director was carrying that part of the story.
Look for two or three new people who have seen what you do, rather than one replacement. A senior engineer on a neighbouring team you have helped. The product lead from the project that went well. Let them see your work over the next quarter in ordinary ways. Ask their opinion on a design. Send them the write up. One champion is a single point of failure, and you have just watched it fail.
And keep the old relationship. People who leave a company do not stop knowing people. In a year they may be hiring, or be asked about you by somebody who is.
Monday: write three sentences describing your best work this year, the way your former champion would have said them in a meeting.
– Asael Shinder
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