How To Earn More And Move Up In Technology | Jeremy Burns
From Tech World Human Skills by Ben Pearce
May 27, 2026 · 43 min
About this episode
The episode discusses how individuals in technology can take control of their career progression and the factors influencing promotions and pay raises.
This episode looks at why career growth in technology rarely happens by accident, and what people working in tech can actually do to take control of their own progression. Ben sits down with Jeremy Burns, VP of Platform Engineering at Hawke and author of Earn More Move Up, to dig into the mechanics that decide who gets promoted, who gets paid more, and who quietly stalls. The conversation centres on a simple hierarchy that Jeremy uses for almost every career decision: customer, company, team, self. Reverse that order and your career suffers. Get it the right way round and the rewards follow naturally because you are creating real value for the business. They also unpack the unwritten contract every employment relationship lives inside, the difference between endorsing and adjusting feedback, and why pay rises and promotions are a lagging indicator of work you did six to nine months ago. Jeremy explains why walking into a performance review with a beautiful self-pitch document is almost always too late, and what to do instead. Ben adds the leadership view from his time managing budgets at Microsoft, including the moment a manager sits down with their final pot of…
People in this episode
Host: Ben Pearce
Guest: Jeremy Burns
Topics covered
- career growth
- technology
- performance reviews
- promotions
- self-pitch
- value creation
Keywords
- career progression
- technology
- promotions
- performance reviews
- self-pitch
- value creation
- feedback
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Hawke, Microsoft
Books & works: Earn More Move Up
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