3 Strategies to Build Credibility and Advance Your Career

Over the years that I worked as a software engineer at startups, midsize companies, or large big tech companies, and along the way, I have learned some key strategies for building credibilities at work, strategies that can help you get noticed, trusted, and promoted in your career. In this video, I will share those three simple and proven tips to boost your credibility at work. Whether you're currently in tech or any other fields, these tips will help you stand out and grow your career. And of course, if you're interested in more content like this, please make sure to subscribe to this channel and like this video. And the timestamp of this video is in the description below, so feel free to jump to any section you like. And if so far sounds interesting, let's get started. All right. So the first point is to go above the standard. Now everyone has a different standard. Now it depends on your standards or job requirements. Let's say that you are a software engineer and these are your standard requirements. For example, you would have the ability to write code and be able to do bug fix, be able to maintain the code, be able to do code reviews or testings, right? And these seems to be pretty common requirements for software engineers. And most software engineers think that if they were to perform their current level, they can be able to earn their credibilities and be able to earn trust from their teams. But that's something that they're supposed to do. And if they want to earn trust, build up their credibilities, they have to go beyond their standards. So for example, let's say if they found an issue in their software, in their products, for example, if they found that there was a delay in the logins, or if there's a significant big spike in their system, even though that's outside of their responsibilities or their team responsibilities, but it's affecting their product, then they will proactively investigate it and find ways to solve it. Either it's going to work with that feature owner to resolve the issue, or it's going to be diving deep into the code base if there is no feature owner, or it's going to communicate with the customers, try to talk with the PM or managers to figure out the issue, whatever it is to solve the issue is going to earn so much credibility because it shows to others that you have the capability to solve a problem that is outside of your responsibilities or something that's outside of your technical area. Now, obviously, it doesn't have to be all metrics and try to find issues from the customer end and be able to solve those problems. But or it could be something like making a team or organization impacts, for example, improve the productivity or overall performance of the team or organization, right? For example, things like, let's say you found the onboarding documentation is outdated, and you take the initiative to be able to solve them, right? And be able to update the documentation, making the onboarding process more smoother, right? Or it could be something like you found something that you learned recently, and you decide to share this knowledge to others by creating a knowledge sharing session. And for those who are facing the similar problems, or maybe it was a better way to test or there was a lot of questions asked in this area, and you concluded into a meeting or a session. And those are just the two examples. But there's could be more examples that you can go above your standards. Alright, so the second point is knowledge sharing session. Now I know I just mentioned about knowledge sharing session, the first point, but knowledge sharing session isn't limited to just meetings where you set up a meeting and you'd be the host and you want to share knowledge. It could be something through code reviews, where you have some knowledge that you pertain, and you want to share that with feedback from others pull requests. Or it could be specs review, where someone writes a documentation, you share your questions or feedbacks, or it could also be helping customers to resolve issues. And don't think that helping customer is product managers or customer supports job. If we have the ability, and we have the chance to directly help the customer, then why not, right, but at least taking this initiative to help others, you're doing something that's outside of your ability, but it benefits to the team and the overall organization. Or if you don't want to take on meetings, you can also do that through documentation sharing, right, you can write a documentation and share with others. Or it could also be pair programming session where someone is stuck on a code and needs help with another pair of AI, then you can also do so. Or it can also be something like if you have a challenge on a project that you face, and you just want to create a meeting to openly discuss and seeking for advice, that could also be a knowledge sharing session where, you know, you're getting information from others to share, right. So these are all some great examples. It shows that you care about the team's overall success rather than just individual success. Most importantly, it shows you care about thinking on behalf of company or organization rather than becoming that single point of failure. So the next point is ownership. Ownership isn't just about owning problems within your responsibilities. We should also own a problem that's outside of our responsibilities as well. Let's say we here we have a software engineer, a got blocked by others work, and this work could be like manager's approval, right? Or it could be like is waiting for a QA to completely test the product, or it could be like waiting for another coworker to complete their task. So rather than blaming on others because of the project delay, or I have already completed the task and I'm waiting for others to complete it, it will be ideal to develop this founder mentality. Founder doesn't need to wait for others to unblock themselves. Every problem is their own problem. And if you're the CEO of XYZ company, you don't want to wait for others to get unblocked, right? And it's the same thing. So let's say if you got blocked by, you know, for example, another coworker, right? For their task to be completed before you can be able to move on, then maybe it's a good idea to follow up this coworker, see if there's any challenge they face, or maybe something that you can do to help them, right? Or it could be waiting for a manager's approval, or then you have to set up your follow-up sessions to follow up with your managers, right? Or maybe it could be QA that, you know, they are currently testing a bunch of things and you know, you're currently in the queue. Then maybe you can be able to help them to test things and be able to unload their work to get unblocked faster. But here are just a few examples. And you can see that when you develop this founder mentality, you don't need to wait for others to unblock yourself. You're working towards the problem and be able to solve them. And that's the power of ownership. All right, thanks for watching everyone. And I hope these strategies help you to build credibility at work and take your career to the next level. Now, if you find this video helpful, please don't forget to like this video, comment down below what's your favorite tip and subscribe for more career tips. Now, if you have any questions or want to share your experiences, feel free to leave them down below. See you in the next video.