The $100K Mistake: Why Engineers Stay at the Same Level for 3+ Years

Every year you do not get promoted costs you real money. Not hypothetical money. Not "potential" money. Actual dollars that hit your bank account at the next level but do not hit it at your current one.

At most major tech companies, the compensation difference between levels is $15,000 to $50,000+ per year - and that is before stock refreshers, which often double or triple the gap. Over a 10-year career, one missed promotion cycle can compound into $100,000 to $300,000 in lost earnings.

The median promotion timeline at FAANG companies tells the story:

• L3 to L4 (entry to mid): 1 to 1.5 years
• L4 to L5 (mid to senior): 2 to 3 years
• L5 to L6 (senior to staff): 3 to 5 years
• L6 to L7 (staff to senior staff): 4 to 7+ years

If you are significantly beyond those medians, you are not just "waiting your turn." Something specific is keeping you at your current level. And it is almost never the quality of your work.

Here are the five traps that keep talented engineers stuck - and the specific fix for each one.

Trap 1: Great at the Job, Bad at Documenting It

This is the most common trap by a wide margin. You do excellent work. Your teammates know it. Your manager knows it. But when promo time comes, nobody can articulate exactly what you did or why it mattered.

Promotion committees do not watch you work. They read a document. If that document is vague, incomplete, or missing quantified impact, the committee defaults to "not enough evidence" - even if you are clearly operating above your level.

The tell: Your manager says things like "I know you are doing great work, but I need more concrete examples to make your case." Or your self-review feels thin even though your quarter was strong.

The fix: Start a running work log today. Not a fancy brag doc - just a weekly habit of writing down what you shipped, the metrics involved, and who it helped. Spend 10 minutes every Friday. When promo time comes, you will have 6 months of material to pull from instead of trying to reconstruct it from memory. Then structure it as a proper promotion packet - organized by criteria, not by date.

Trap 2: Solving the Wrong Problems

High effort does not equal high visibility. Many engineers spend months grinding on technically challenging problems that, from the committee's perspective, do not demonstrate next-level impact.

The classic example: spending a quarter refactoring an internal tool that 5 people use. The work might be technically harder than building a feature that serves 10 million users. But the committee will always prioritize the feature, because scope and business impact are what separate levels.

The tell: You work harder than anyone on your team but your impact section always feels underwhelming. You are picking tasks based on technical interest rather than promotion criteria.

The fix: Before committing to a project, run it through the "promo filter." Ask three questions:

1. Does this project have scope that matches or exceeds my target level?
2. Can I quantify the impact in terms the business cares about (users, revenue, reliability)?
3. Will this be visible to people outside my immediate team?

If the answer to two or more of those is "no," the project might be worth doing - but it will not get you promoted. Actively seek work that scores yes on all three.

Trap 3: Waiting to Be Tapped

This is the most expensive misconception in tech careers: the belief that if you do great work long enough, someone will eventually notice and promote you.

Nobody is coming to tap you on the shoulder. At most companies, promotions require someone to actively nominate you and assemble evidence. If you are waiting for your manager to do this unprompted, you are relying on them having time, motivation, and enough documented material to build your case. Most managers are stretched across 6 to 10 reports. They want to promote you - they just do not have the bandwidth to build the packet for you.

The tell: You have never explicitly told your manager "I want to be promoted this cycle" or asked "What is the gap between where I am and the next level?"

The fix: Have the conversation this week. Not "I think I deserve a promotion" (that puts your manager on the defensive). Instead: "I would like to target a promotion in the next cycle. Can we identify the 2-3 things I need to demonstrate to make that happen?" Then write those things down and work backward from the deadline. Read our guide on when to ask for a promotion for exact timing.

Trap 4: The Scope Ceiling

You are excellent at your current level. In fact, you are the best L5 on the team. The problem is: being the best L5 is not how you become an L6. L6 requires fundamentally different work, not just better L5 work.

Every level transition requires a step change in scope, ambiguity, and influence. The jump from senior to staff is the most dramatic example. A senior engineer delivers excellent individual work on defined problems. A staff engineer identifies the problems worth solving, defines the approach, and influences teams they do not directly manage.

The tell: You consistently get "exceeds expectations" at your current level but "not yet demonstrating next level" on promotion readiness. Your manager says you need to "show more scope" or "drive larger initiatives."

The fix: Stop optimizing for excellence at your current level and start deliberately practicing the skills of the next level. Volunteer for the ambiguous, cross-team project nobody wants. Write the design doc for a system that spans three services. Mentor a junior engineer through a shipping cycle. These are uncomfortable precisely because they are new - and that discomfort is the signal you are growing.

Trap 5: Wrong Timing (Always "Next Cycle")

Most tech companies run promotion cycles once or twice a year - typically Q1 and Q3. The packets are due weeks before the committee meets. And the evidence window usually covers the previous 6 to 12 months.

If you start thinking about promotion after the deadline, you are already a full cycle behind. That is 6 months minimum. At $25,000+ per year in compensation difference, each missed cycle costs you $12,500 or more. Two missed cycles and you are down $25,000. This adds up fast.

The tell: You think about promotion during review season, scramble to put something together, and either miss the deadline or submit a packet that feels rushed. Then you tell yourself "next cycle for sure."

The fix: Work backward from the deadline. Most packets are due 4 to 6 weeks before the committee meets. Start preparing 8 weeks out. That gives you 2 weeks to draft, 2 weeks to get manager and peer feedback, and 2 weeks to revise. Mark the date in your calendar right now - not when you "feel ready," but when the cycle demands it.

The Compound Cost of Waiting

Let us make this concrete. Here are the cumulative earnings differences for common promotion scenarios (based on Levels.fyi median total compensation data):

And these numbers are conservative. They do not include the compounding effect on stock refreshers, which are typically a percentage of your target comp - meaning higher-level employees get proportionally larger refreshers every year. Over a 10-year career, a single extra year stuck at one level can cost $200,000+ in total lifetime earnings.

The question is not whether you can afford to invest in your promotion. It is whether you can afford not to.

How to Diagnose Which Trap You Are In

Most engineers are stuck in one or two of these traps, not all five. Here is a quick way to figure out which one applies to you:

1. Pull up your last self-review or performance summary. Is it specific and quantified, or vague and narrative? If vague - you are in Trap 1 (documentation).
2. List your top 3 projects from the last 6 months. For each one, ask: "Would a committee member outside my team understand why this matters?" If not - you are in Trap 2 (wrong problems).
3. When is the last time you told your manager you want a promotion? If the answer is "never" or "over a year ago" - you are in Trap 3 (waiting).
4. Does your work look different from 12 months ago? Bigger scope, more ambiguity, more cross-team influence? If it looks the same - you are in Trap 4 (scope ceiling).
5. Do you know when your company's next promo cycle deadline is? If not - you are in Trap 5 (timing).

The One Thing to Do This Week

You do not need to fix all five traps at once. Pick the one that resonated most and take one action on it this week:

• Trap 1: Spend 30 minutes writing down every project you shipped in the last 6 months with metrics.
• Trap 2: Identify one high-scope, high-visibility project you could own next quarter.
• Trap 3: Schedule a 1:1 with your manager and say "I want to discuss promotion readiness."
• Trap 4: Volunteer for one cross-team initiative or mentoring commitment.
• Trap 5: Find your company's promo cycle deadline and put it in your calendar with an 8-week reminder.

If you got passed over for promotion recently, the diagnosis framework above will tell you exactly what to fix before the next cycle. The work is already done - the documentation and positioning are what need to change.

And if you are ready to stop leaving money on the table and need a committee-ready promotion packet, GetPromoted builds one for you in 10 minutes. Answer a few questions about your work, preview it for free, and pay $79 only if you are happy with it.