I’ve noticed a pattern in my career and need advice on how to fix it.

Companies love relying on me to build software and get hard tasks done, but when leadership roles open up, I keep getting passed over for people who are better connected or better at managing up.

Two examples:

Example 1: As a senior dev, I was the top performer and won Employee of the Month twice. But the team lead role went to someone close to management. Later, a product manager promoted another peer based on their personal relationship instead of performance or seniority.

Example 2: At another job, I built the company’s entire dev platform from scratch. When a new VP came in, he brought in his own external contacts for new projects, stopped involving me, and left me doing routine maintenance. While I was doing this , he was reading my code , understanding the core business , actually he was preparing himself so he can takeover my work , The system I built there was really complex .…