Positioning

Developers are better positioned when known for preventing incidents instead of only cleaning them up. Reputation functions as career currency. Being a great coder is only one tool, not a full career strategy. In the article's simplified promotion model, positioning accounts for more of the promotion decision than technical skill. Positioning includes visibility, trust, business fluency, and political capital. Promotion depends partly on how others describe a developer’s impact when the developer is absent. Positioning can create a compounding advantage by turning visibility into trust and trust into more opportunities. The article presents positioning as a frequent deciding factor once all promotion candidates are already qualified. Developers should optimize for impact rather than only elite code.