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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

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1. \n

   Hi, I\u2019m a senior software engineer at a big tech company, where I\u2019ve been employed for precisely one year. So far, the feedback I\u2019ve received has been overwhelmingly positive. My manager has even mentioned that her superiors are impressed with my performance, and my colleagues have shared their positive feedback as well.

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   While I\u2019ve been told that I\u2019m doing exceptionally well and may be on track for a promotion in my upcoming year-end review, there\u2019s a slight concern. Given that I\u2019ll have been with the company for just over a year at that point, my relatively short tenure might affect my chances. During my mid-year review, my manager advised me to tackle more complex problems and take on larger tasks that have an impact on multiple teams to bolster my promotion prospects.

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   I don\u2019t really know what to do with this advice since I don\u2019t know what else to do besides passively wait and hope that these famous \u2018complex problems\u2019 come my way. I feel like whether or not I get to prove myself in a big way to secure the promotion will come down to luck, is there anything I can do to reduce this luck factor?

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2. \n

   I recently started a new remote job as a lead engineer at a startup. Previously, I was working for an agency and was almost constantly busy. Additionally, I was held extremely accountable for the time I spent working through submission of daily timesheets.

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   Now that I\u2019m at a startup, I\u2019m struggling to not feel guilty when I feel like I have nothing to do. My area of the product moves much slower than everyone else\u2019s, so while everyone else is constantly busy, I feel like I\u2019m making much less impact. My manager, the CTO, is fully aware of my lighter workload and is fine with it.

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   My question isn\u2019t necessarily about how I can make more impact. It\u2019s about how to make peace with the idea that I\u2019m not being productive for 8 hours every day. When you\u2019re in an office, you feel like you\u2019re working even when you\u2019re not, because you\u2019re physically there. When working remotely, I tend to feel guilty when I\u2019m not physically sitting at my desk writing code, even when there isn\u2019t really any code to write. Do I need to just get over myself and feel more grateful for all my free time? Or is there another way of looking at this that I\u2019m missing?

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