Brag Document vs. Promotion Packet: Why One Gets You Promoted and the Other Doesn't

Brag documents are everywhere right now. Engineers at Google, Meta, and Amazon keep them religiously. Julia Evans popularized the concept, and it caught fire because it solves a real problem: you do great work all year, and by review time, you can barely remember last quarter.

A brag doc fixes that. It gives you a running log of your wins.

But here is the thing nobody talks about: brag documents don't get you promoted. Promotion packets do. And the difference between the two is the difference between remembering your accomplishments and actually getting rewarded for them.

If you already keep a brag doc, you are ahead of 80% of your peers. But you are one critical step away from making it actually count. This post will show you exactly what that step is - and how to take it in 10 minutes.

What a Brag Document Is (and What It Does Well)

A brag document - sometimes called a hype doc or work log - is a personal running record of everything you have accomplished. Julia Evans' original post described it as "a document where you write down the stuff you did that you are proud of."

The typical brag doc includes:

• Projects you shipped and their impact
• Positive feedback from teammates or stakeholders
• Design documents you authored
• Mentoring and team contributions
• Skills you picked up
• Anything that made you feel good about your work

Brag docs are excellent at what they do. They solve the recency bias problem. They make self-reviews less painful. They give you confidence during 1:1s. If you do not keep one, start today.

But a brag doc was never designed to get you promoted. It was designed to help you remember your work. The audience is you. The structure is chronological. The tone is celebratory.

None of those things are what a promotion committee needs.

What a Promotion Packet Is (and Why It Gets You Promoted)

A promotion packet is a structured document built for a specific audience: the people who decide whether you move to the next level. At Google, that is the GRAD promotion committee. At Meta, it is the calibration panel. At Amazon, it is the promotion review during OLR.

These committees spend an average of 3 to 5 minutes per candidate. They are evaluating you against a specific set of criteria - usually 4 to 6 dimensions like scope, complexity, independence, technical depth, and multiplier effect.

A strong promotion packet includes:

• Executive summary - your case in 30 seconds
• Criteria-mapped accomplishments - organized by what the committee evaluates, not by date
• Quantified metrics - revenue impact, latency improvements, users served, team velocity gains
• Scope evidence - concrete proof you are operating at the next level already
• Leadership and influence - mentoring, design reviews, cross-team projects
• Peer endorsements - specific quotes, not generic praise

The key difference: a promotion packet is not about what you are proud of. It is about what the committee needs to see to say yes.

Side-by-Side: Brag Doc vs. Promotion Packet

Notice the pattern. A brag doc is inward-facing. A promotion packet is outward-facing. One helps you feel good about your work. The other helps other people validate that your work meets the bar.

Both are valuable. But only one gets you promoted.

How to Turn Your Brag Doc into a Promotion Packet in 5 Steps

If you already have a brag doc, you are sitting on raw material. You do not need to start from scratch. Here is how to transform it into something a committee will actually act on.

Step 1: Get the Criteria for Your Next Level

Before you write a single word, find out exactly what your company evaluates for promotions. At Google, it is the GRAD rubric. At Meta, it is the performance expectations framework. At Amazon, it is the Leadership Principles mapped to your target level.

If your company does not have published criteria, ask your manager directly: "What are the 4-5 things the committee looks for when promoting someone from my level to the next?"

Write those criteria down. They become the sections of your packet.

Step 2: Sort Your Brag Doc Items by Criteria (Not by Date)

Go through every entry in your brag doc and tag it with the criterion it best demonstrates. Some entries will map to multiple criteria. Some will not map to any - those stay in the brag doc but do not make it into the packet.

This is the hardest part for most people. It means admitting that some of your proudest work does not actually demonstrate next-level performance. A brag doc says "I did this and it was great." A promotion packet says "I did this, and here is why it proves I am already operating at the next level."

Step 3: Add Metrics to Every Accomplishment

Committees think in numbers. For each accomplishment, answer at least one of these:

• How many users, requests, or dollars were affected?
• What was the before/after improvement?
• How much time, cost, or effort was saved?
• What was the scope in terms of services, teams, or systems?

"Improved the search pipeline" is a brag doc entry. "Reduced search latency by 40% (p99: 800ms to 480ms), impacting 12M daily queries across 3 services" is a promotion packet entry.

Step 4: Write the Executive Summary First

Your executive summary is the single most important paragraph in the entire packet. Committee members who are short on time may read only this section. It needs to answer three questions in under 100 words:

1. What level are you targeting?
2. What is the strongest evidence you are already performing at that level?
3. What is the business impact of your work?

Write this last (after you have organized everything else), but put it first in the document. Think of it as the trailer for a movie - it sells the committee on reading the rest.

Step 5: Trim Ruthlessly

A brag doc can be 10 pages. A promotion packet should be 1 to 3 pages. If the committee spends 3 to 5 minutes on your case, every sentence needs to earn its spot.

For each accomplishment, ask: "Does this prove I am operating at the next level?" If the answer is no, cut it. If the answer is "sort of," combine it with a stronger example or cut it.

Three rock-solid examples beat ten mediocre ones. Every time.

Why Most People Stop at the Brag Doc

If the transformation is straightforward, why do so few people actually do it? After talking to hundreds of engineers, here are the three patterns that keep showing up.

1. The "My Work Speaks for Itself" Belief

It does not. Your work speaks to the people who saw it happen. The committee did not see it happen. They see a document. If the document is a disorganized list of things you are proud of, they will struggle to map it to promotion criteria - and when the committee struggles, they default to "not yet."

2. The Format Paralysis Problem

Most people do not know what a promotion packet looks like. They have never seen one. So they stick with the format they know - the chronological brag doc - because at least it exists. The gap is not effort. It is structure. You need a proven template that maps directly to what committees evaluate.

3. The Emotional Discomfort of Editing

Turning a brag doc into a promotion packet requires cutting things you are proud of. That project you spent 3 months on? If it does not demonstrate next-level scope, it should not be in the packet. That feels bad. So people avoid it.

But here is the reframe: you are not diminishing your work. You are selecting the evidence that makes your case undeniable. A lawyer does not present every fact - they present the facts that win.

The Cost of Staying at the Brag Doc Stage

A typical senior-level promotion at a major tech company is worth $15,000 to $50,000+ per year in additional compensation. Every promo cycle you miss because your documentation was not committee-ready is a cycle of that money left on the table.

Over a 5-year window, that is $75,000 to $250,000 in lost earnings. Not because your work was not good enough - but because the document you submitted was not good enough.

The brag doc got you 80% of the way there. The promotion packet closes the gap.

Quick Check: Is Your Document a Brag Doc or a Promotion Packet?

Answer these five questions about the document you plan to submit:

1. Is it organized by promotion criteria or by date?
2. Does every accomplishment include at least one quantified metric?
3. Could a committee member who has never met you understand your impact in 3 minutes?
4. Does it include an executive summary?
5. Have you cut anything that does not directly prove next-level performance?

If you answered "no" to two or more of those, you have a brag doc. A great one, probably. But not a promotion packet.

The good news: the hardest part - doing the work worth writing about - is already done. Now you need to package it. You can do that yourself using our self-assessment guide, or you can let GetPromoted build your committee-ready packet in 10 minutes.