In tech, I've observed that the most common recognition results from a feature launch that contributes to revenue or another metric, e.g. A/B test launch.
For those who _do_ feel recognized at work, what are the ways/processes that your employer recognizes you? What are forms of recognition that _don't_ work?
Rinse and repeat.
The sad reality is that nobody is going to do that for you. You might get a great boss, a sponsor, or even a leader who gets wind of what you're doing and you get lucky. In reality though, most people do not have that and you should just create your own luck by being annoying as hell about your accomplishments. That's the easiest way to get noticed.
The other side is that you have to navigate the people who see you as a threat because of this. It's a whole different game that nobody talks about. It's the "leaders" who will throw you under the bus. It's the bosses who try to sabotage you by giving you impossible jobs. There's much more going on here that's usually explained by people's insecurity. Great leaders and bosses would encourage you to surpass them. Sadly we live in the real world where most people at this layer are narcissists and nepotists.
One of the best things you can do is to collect "wins" in a local database application. These are proven things that give you a track record when performance reviews come around and you can hold your boss accountable when they try to lie to your face.
1) Recognition 2) Identified as threat 3) Political subterfuge
So I prefer to avoid #1 if possible, especially when remote working with in-house coworkers. You often don’t even get to /see/ #3 happening until it’s too late.
The first thing to ask is how you measure recognition. Because there are plenty of people that get recognition but not a lot of pay. What you get paid depends more on what other companies are willing to pay you.
The second thing to ask is by whom do you want to get recognized? It's much easier to get recognition by your peers: they spend much more time with you and have the technical knowledge to appreciate your work, and get impacted by your work too. Getting recognized by your peers is important, mostly for your own happiness and sometimes it also permeates upwards (just a little).
I bet that you mean: getting recognized by your manager and getting more pay. Regarding the pay: statistically your are not going to accumulate raises every year. It's unmaintainable. Of course some people manage to do that but you need to be extremely lucky and work very hard. Switching companies is the best way of getting raises.
Regarding getting recognized by your manager: that depends a lot on your manager. Do you give your manager recognition? If the answer is no then it may be because you know little about her work or maybe she is a horrible manager. In the later case screw everything and switch companies, don't bother, run, run fast, life is too short and the job market is great. In the first case communicate more with your manager and understand her problems. Solving her problems is the best way to get recognition. Even trying to solve them and failing will get you recognition. If you are doing something that you think is impressive communicate with your manager and explain why is important. So to summarize my advice is: align your objectives with your manager and super-manager objectives.
In terms of my work being recognized? Also a big no.
The fundamental issue is that optimizing things, paying down tech debt, maintenance, etc just don’t get nearly the same fanfare as new features or product launches. I don’t blame people, because the latter is flashier, and more understood by nontechnical folks in the business.
For people like me who work behind the scenes, you need a trusted manager who understands the importance of your work and will go to bat for you, and/or you need to regularly publicize your accomplishments in a measurable, easily understood way. For me, that means posting a tidbit in Slack whenever I make a noteworthy change.
I wish my sort of work was respected inline with its business impact, but alas, it’s harder to measure or communicate things like “developer time saved” vs “feature X bumped sales by y%.”
What happens at my workplace is: we have a weekly status meeting and as annoying as it can be to listen to the same stories over and over my boss takes notice what we can easily achieve and where we struggle. Then when one hits a roadblock our boss asks the person if they want or need help and when help is wished for or the time pressure to ship a feature is too imminent he assigns a person to help. That person almost always is the perfect one for the task at hand.
And that is something I find very rewarding and definetly makes me feel recognized for my skills.
It’s a little more than that, but I don’t feel like elaborating on it. I don’t get my current job any more or less than any other job, I just think the way this company is organized, my team is doing a lot of background work for efforts of the teams that do get recognized.
This gives visibility to everyone in the company, and is also highlighted in our monthly email newsletter, as well as during our monthly all-hands.