How do I pretend to be an extrovert?
Seriously, how do I become more extroverted?? I got my grad job in 2023, exactly a year later I was promoted to a junior role. I was on my way to a Mid level role (not just my opinion, my team lead who would make that decision with the other tech leads pretty much confirmed I was almost there. I got on well with him and the rest of my team, and my work spoke for itself) then BOOM, they move me to a new team because they were short staffed there. I was a bit shocked because it was out of nowhere, but at the same time not really because my CTO (I work at a startup) kept telling me he wanted me to do more primary backend work. Fair enough, I’m happy to move and adapt, and I want to appear flexible. (I also think as a software engineer I should be able to work on any team) Now, in me moving to this team, I knew my road to promotion could be halted a little bit but I’m okay with that. I’ve been doing well, and have had 2 quarterly reviews with a new team lead since joining.
Here’s the issue, in both those quarterly reviews and alllllll my bi weekly 1:1s, I speak about what I’m doing, where I’ve been progressing etc etc, and I always make it a point to ask for feedback and areas of improvement. The ONLY thing he ever says is I should talk more. I’m naturally an introverted awkward person, but I’m also very chatty, so I do talk. Only thing is I work remote ?? So who am I supposed to talk to outside of meetings? I’m not just going to start texting you over slack for the fun of it
Almost all the other engineers are hybrid tho, so they go into the office 3/4 times a week, where I go about twice a month because of the distance between my house and office. So naturally, I expect there to be some sort of relationship between the people in the office that I wouldn’t have with them.
But I still make the effort to be open and outgoing when I’m there, or during the small talk section of online meetings.
I didn’t think much of it till a grad who started Jan last year got moved to mid level this week?
That’s when I was like woah, hold up. Now I will put my hands up and say he’s good at his job, but so I am. I’m very good at what I do. Fair enough if I was bad at my job, but no one has said that? Ever. I don’t just “do the job” I do it exceptionally well. Everyone says that. So if being an extrovert is what will move me up cool. How do I become this super extrovert ?