The fasted way to get promoted
His promotion was denied and then quickly approved because he did this.
A client came to me frustrated.
His promotion had been denied for over a year. His manager kept giving vague feedback, with no specific examples of what needed improvement. No clear path forward.
I recommended that he set a deadline for himself: 6 months. If there’s no clear path forward by then, start looking. He followed through. Got an offer. And it completely changed the dynamic.
He told his manager he was ready to leave. The same manager who said he wasn’t ready for a year fast-tracked his promotion: “Please don’t leave. I’ll get you promoted.”
Suddenly, the “impossible” promotion materialized in 48 hours.
Should you threaten to quit to get promoted? Does this strategy help or hurt your career? After working at Amazon for 7 years and coaching dozens of senior ICs, let me tell you how this works.
Story time: when I asked for a raise, one of my managers at Amazon — who genuinely wanted to help me — told me there wasn’t much he could do within the salary range. But if I got a competing offer, that would give him another data point to advocate for me with HR.
This conversation doesn’t happen for everyone. My manager only told me this because we had a good relationship and he knew I didn’t actually want to leave the team.
But it revealed something about the corporate world:
The system rewards external leverage, not internal loyalty.
People call this ‘boomeranging,’ and it happens at the highest level in big tech: engineers or PMs who couldn’t get promoted to Principal internally leave and join another company, then get hired back at the principal level a year later. Sometimes it’s easier to get hired into a high-level role than to be promoted internally. Same company, same work — but now they’re valuable because they left.
If you actually want to get promoted through good work:
First, evaluate whether your manager wants to help you grow. Do they give you specific, actionable feedback? Do they help you expand your scope? Do they tell you when promotion cycles open and actively work on your promotion documents?
In a healthy team, promotion isn’t just about the title. It’s about growing with your manager and team, creating more impact together. Your new title helps you become more influential when negotiating with stakeholders. It’s a win-win situation.
I don’t recommend threatening to leave as a negotiation tactic in a healthy team.
But if your manager isn’t taking action, if you’ve asked for clarity repeatedly and gotten nothing, then building external options becomes necessary.
Here’s the key: When you hand in your resignation, you can’t be bluffing.
Using an outside offer to pressure your manager into a promotion damages your relationship with them. So the moment you present that offer, you need to be genuinely ready to leave and take it.
This only works when you actually feel you have a better option. That’s when you have real power to negotiate, not when you’re pretending. The client I mentioned earlier accepted the offer instead of the promotion. He doesn’t trust his manager anymore.
To managers:
When you only act after someone has an offer, you’re teaching your team that loyalty doesn’t matter—leverage does. They’re watching. And taking notes.
If you’re in this situation right now:
If you are new to a role, it’s normal to take 1-2 years to get promoted. But if you have already performed at the next level for a while and the promotion conversation has been brought up multiple times, you shouldn’t just keep waiting.
*One exception is that you feel you are still learning a ton on this team, or your projects can add massive value to your resume, and it might be worth it to stay longer.
But you should still set a timeline to re-evaluate. Because here’s what it feels like when you stay in this “career limbo”: Your confidence erodes. You start questioning your abilities. You internalize that negative feedback that might not be true.
Instead of waiting endlessly for someone else to decide your career trajectory, set a deadline. Three months. Six months. Whatever feels right. Start interviewing even if you’re not sure you’ll leave. Reach out to connections to see if they are hiring.
Getting external validation isn’t just about leverage; it’s about remembering your actual value and reclaiming your sense of agency.
Look, you can’t control whether you get promoted. But you can control your timeline and take back your power.
In today’s economy, there is no job security. Options could mean you are good enough that you can get an offer anytime, it could mean you have your own network or a personal brand to attract recruiters or kick start a consulting business.
There are two ways I can help you:
I offer a one-time 1-1 call, I’ll diagnose your situation, provide my advice for your brand, and a few options for your next step.
Get instant access to my “Trustworthy personal branding for tech leaders” course.
Reply this email with 1 or 2, and I’ll send you the details.
You don’t need permission to build your career. You need options.
Talk to you next week,
Daliana