Why your manager's boss doesn't know your real impact (10-minute fix)

Hey Warblers,

Marcus from Stripe, shared a story with us, that hit a nerve with everyone who heard it.

Marcus worked 60-hour weeks. Never missed a deadline. Fixed every production issue. Maintained legacy systems nobody else would touch.

His review: "Meets expectations."

His peer who worked 40-hour weeks? "Exceeds expectations" and promoted.

The difference? Marcus spent 80% of his time on invisible maintenance work. His peer spent 80% on new initiatives that leadership tracked in quarterly planning.

Here's the brutal truth: You can work yourself to death on tasks that don't matter to leadership.

Let me repeat that. You can work yourself to death on tasks that don't matter to leadership.

Marcus learned this lesson the hard way. But what he did next transformed his career from "reliable executor" to "strategic leader" - without working a single extra hour.

Within 8 months, he was promoted with a $95K raise.

Here's exactly how he restructured his role for maximum visibility and impact.

The "Work Portfolio" Audit That Changed Everything

Marcus's revelation came from tracking his time for two weeks:

• 40% maintaining legacy systems

• 30% fixing other people's bugs

• 20% attending status meetings

• 10% actual new development

"I was a senior engineer doing junior engineer work because I was 'good at it' and 'reliable.'"

Meanwhile, his promoted peer's breakdown:

• 60% leading new initiatives

• 20% architecture and design

• 15% mentoring/teaching

• 5% maintenance work

The pattern was clear: Visible impact beats invisible reliability every time.

The "Strategic Work Rebalancing" Framework

Marcus developed a systematic approach to shift his work portfolio without dropping balls or burning bridges.

Phase 1: The Impact Inventory (Week 1-2)

Step 1: Track Everything (1 week)

• Log every task and time spent

• Note: Does leadership track this?

• Rate impact: High/Medium/Low

• Identify: Could someone else do this?

Step 2: Categorize Your Work Into Three Horizons

Horizon 3: New initiatives, innovation (ideal: 40-60%) The career-makers. This work gets mentioned in all-hands and drives promotions.

What counts as Horizon 3:

• Building new products/features from scratch

• Creating new architectures or systems

• Leading technical initiatives that change how teams work

• Prototyping solutions to unsolved problems

• Work that appears in quarterly planning docs

Marcus's examples:

• "Design new API architecture" → Horizon 3

• "Build ML pipeline for recommendations" → Horizon 3

• "Create new deployment system" → Horizon 3

Why it matters: This work has executive visibility, shapes strategy, and proves you can handle ambiguity.

Horizon 2: Improvements, optimization (ideal: 30-40%) The reputation-builders. This work shows technical maturity and leadership.

What counts as Horizon 2:

• Refactoring for 10x performance gains

• Improving team processes/workflows

• Reducing technical debt strategically

• Mentoring and upleveling others

• Creating reusable tools/frameworks

• Work that makes everyone's job easier

Marcus's examples:

• "Optimize query performance by 50%" → Horizon 2

• "Refactor authentication to reduce complexity" → Horizon 2

• "Create shared component library" → Horizon 2

Why it matters: Shows you think beyond features to systems. Critical for senior+ roles.

Horizon 1: Maintenance, fixes (ideal: 5-15%) The necessary evils. This work keeps lights on but won't get you promoted.

What counts as Horizon 1:

• Bug fixes (unless they're critical outages)

• Routine updates and patches

• Supporting legacy systems

• Answering the same questions repeatedly

• Manual processes that could be automated

• Work no one mentions after it's done

Marcus's examples:

• "Fix login bug affecting 10 users" → Horizon 1

• "Update dependencies" → Horizon 1

• "Debug why cron job failed" → Horizon 1

Why it matters: Necessary but invisible. If this is >30% of your time, you're stuck in execution mode.

Step 3: Find Your Gaps

Marcus tracked his time for 2 weeks and categorized everything:

Marcus's reality check:

• Horizon 3: 10% (vs 50% ideal) → 40-percentage-point gap

  • Only working on new stuff during "free time"

  • No involvement in planning or strategy

  • Missing the work that gets people promoted

• Horizon 2: 20% (vs 35% ideal) → 15-percentage-point gap

  • Some optimization work but not systematic

  • Not creating leverage through tools/mentoring

  • Limited impact beyond immediate tasks

• Horizon 1: 70% (vs 15% ideal) → 55-percentage-point overage

  • Drowning in maintenance and fixes

  • Go-to person for every production issue

  • Spending senior engineer time on junior tasks

What these gaps meant: The Horizon 3 gap explained why Marcus felt stuck - he wasn't doing promotion-worthy work. The Horizon 1 overage explained why he had no time for strategic work. He was reliability-trapped: too valuable at low-impact work to do high-impact work.

The reality check questions:

1. What percentage of your work gets mentioned in leadership meetings? (Should be >40%)

2. What percentage could a junior team member do with documentation? (Should be <20%)

3. What percentage shapes the future vs maintains the present? (Future should be >50%)

Phase 2: The Strategic Handoff (Week 3-6)

The "Documentation and Delegate" Method:

For each low-impact task, Marcus created a one-page runbook:

• Task: Weekly legacy system maintenance

• Time: 4 hours/week

• Steps: [1-2-3 process]

• Common issues: [Quick fixes]

• Escalation: When to involve me

Then strategically handed off:

• To eager junior engineers (great learning opportunity!)

• To offshore team (time zone coverage!)

• To automation (one-time investment!)

The key phrase: "I'm documenting this so others can learn - would you like to own this going forward? I'll support you."

Phase 3: The High-Impact Land Grab (Week 7-8)

With newfound time, Marcus strategically grabbed high-visibility work:

The "Adjacent Problem" Method

Overheard mobile team struggling with app performance during standup:

• Volunteered: "I'll investigate that this week" (high visibility)

• Spent 3 days profiling, found database bottlenecks affecting 100K+ users

• Delivered findings that shaped Q3 roadmap priorities

• Became the go-to architect for all performance issues company-wide

The "Solution Pattern" Strategy

Noticed fixing the same caching bugs across 5 different services:

• Built "Marcus's Caching Pattern" - packaged his fix as a reusable library with implementation docs

• Other teams started using it preemptively in new services (preventing ~20 hours/month of bugs)

• Shifted reputation from "fixes production issues" to "his patterns prevent them"

The Scripts That Made It Happen

Script 1: The Maintenance Handoff

"Hey [Junior Engineer], I noticed you're interested in learning [system]. I maintain it weekly - would you like to take ownership? I'll train you and be backup. Great way to learn the architecture."

Script 2: The Strategic Volunteer

"I heard in the planning meeting that [initiative] is a priority. I have experience with [relevant skill] and could dedicate Fridays to it. Would that help?"

Script 3: The Time Protection

"I'm deep in [high-impact project] this week. Could [other person] handle [low-impact task]? I've documented the process here: [link]"

Why Most People Stay Stuck

"But someone needs to do this work!" True. But does it need to be you? If a junior team member can do it with your documentation, you're hoarding growth opportunities.

"I'll look like I'm not a team player" Helping others grow IS being a team player. Document, train, support - don't hoard.

"What if things break?" They might. Once. Then people learn. Your job isn't to prevent all problems forever.

Your Work Portfolio Action Plan

This Week:

1. Track your time for 5 days

2. Rate each task: High/Medium/Low impact

3. List everything only you can do vs. anyone could do

Next 2 Weeks:

1. Pick 3 low-impact tasks

2. Document them thoroughly

3. Find new owners (frame as growth opportunity)

Next Month:

1. Volunteer for 1 high-visibility initiative

2. Create 1 named solution/pattern

3. Mentor someone publicly

Key Metrics to Track:

• % time on Horizon 3 work (target: 50%)

• of high-impact projects led

• of people using your solutions

• of mentions in leadership updates

The Uncomfortable Truth

Right now, you're probably amazing at work that doesn't matter for your career.

Your reliability on low-impact tasks is actually holding you back from high-impact opportunities.

Every hour you spend on work a junior team member could do is an hour not spent on work that gets you promoted.

Marcus went from invisible maintainer to visible leader by changing his work mix, not his work ethic.

Same hours. Different allocation. Dramatically different outcome.

What percentage of your work would disappear from leadership's radar if you stopped doing it?

If it's more than 20%, you're optimizing for the wrong thing.

Time to rebalance your portfolio.

Keep shipping,

- Warbler