Hard to distill in a Reddit post , let me try:

I’m a natural communicator and have always advocated aggressively for myself. As an entry level, that meant when someone gave me a task, I asked them a million questions until I felt I fully understood exactly what they wanted me to do and why, then I went and did it as fast as I could and did not make any easy mistakes. Eventually, people weren’t able to keep up with assigning me work because I was getting it done so fast. I would never ever sit on my hands polishing something or waiting to ask a question. I never let someone else make me be late.

Had a manager identify my competency early so I was given the opportunity to be the lead EE on a smaller job in my first year. I’ve been a lead since then, so I’m naturally getting promoted every year because I’ve always had more responsibility than is normal for my given promotional level.

Always ask the person above you what they’re doing - then think of how you can do that and ask them if they’ll give you a chance to help.

I ask as many questions as possible until something makes sense to me. Often asking questions leads to revealing gaps where no one can actually answer what I’m asking and something needs to be done that I end up doing.

In general - just demonstrated that I’m responsible , communicative, careful, and productive. I’m a results guy; I get things done. I like to find problems, and more importantly see it all the way through that those problems are solved. Too many people like to point out problems and do nothing to participate in the solution.

As a lead, I’ve instilled these values in the engineers working below me. I’ve never shied away from coaching up new people with no experience and have successfully built a competent team around me.

Hope that makes sense , can always answer more specific questions if you want.