First of all, let me put this out there: you don't want to be a manager. It's not fun and games. It's not a powerfest. It's a slog. It means more meetings, it means dealing with people's personalities and personal problems, it means less code, it means less clarity, it means more politics. It means constantly trying to compromise between business goals, tech goals, and personal goals. It means becoming responsible not just for the technical product, but the people, and not just their professional lives, but their personal happiness and health. You can't manage burnt out people.

It's a horrible job. You don't want it, and I don't recommend it. I am 1000% serious here. You should ask yourself why you want to be a Director or VP. Is it money? Is it power? Is it respect? Often you can get those things as a regular engineer and not have to deal with politics and people crap. You don't want to be a manager. Seriously.

Still here? Ok, then. With that in mind...

The first thing is I strongly believe that you don't get anything you don't ask for. If your boss is anything like me and my peers and my boss and my boss's boss and anyone else I've ever worked for, they'll take your silence as contentedness. They'll assume that because you aren't the squeaky wheel, you're doing fine.

There isn't a magic lightbulb that's going to appear and they'll say "gee, PrimordialSoup would be a fantastic Director. I'll just take them out of their current role and give them lots of responsibility!" It's actually the other way around! They'll say "PrimodialSoup is a solid engineer, and I'd like to keep them there as long as they want to be."

In other words, you have to ask for it. And I don't mean like "Can I be a director now, pretty please?"

I mean go to your boss at your next 1:1, and you say "Hey, I've been thinking about my career. Let's say in 3 years I want your job. How do I get there?" And then work with your boss to identify opportunities for growth and experience over the next several months/years.

If your boss isn't interested in helping you grow professionally, then you need to find a new boss, IMO.

The second piece of advice I have is to take on all the responsibility you can handle. If a problem comes up, volunteer to fix it. If someone's struggling, volunteer to help. Mentor as much as you can. Be visible and be vocal. That doesn't mean be a jerk and shove your opinions down peoples' throats, but the more that people can see you as a subject matter expert in your area and the more they can see you acting decisively, the more people will start to think of you as a leader. And part of being visible is being _everywhere_ as much as you can.

Keep in mind that you generally aren't promoted _into_ a role. Usually you are _doing_ the job and the promotion is simply a recognition of the _job you're already doing_.

If you don't have direct reports now, it's a little trickier. But you and your boss should be able to identify opportunities for you to stand out as a leader, to gain respect from other peers, and then after you've been leading a project for a long enough period of time, they can make it official, and the people that were unofficially working for you are now officially your direct reports.

But taking on additional responsibility means _nothing_ if your ambitions aren't clear to your manager. They need the context to be able to say, "PrimordialSoup just took on an extra project. They're really going the distance to prove that they can handle additional responsibility." If they don't know you want a promotion, then they'll just chalk it up to you being a go-getter.

So back to point #1: you need to be explicit with your boss. "I'm interested in career growth. What can we do to get me to the next level?" is a great way to start the conversation. Be clear about your expectations and timelines. Don't be unrealistic. Your manager can't promote you overnight. But they can grease the wheels and get the ball rolling, and if they're any good themselves, they'll be able to guide you and mentor you to your next steps.

And again, if they can't or won't do that, then your best bet is to find another mentor, and that usually means finding another job.

Good luck!