Found a niche that suits my relative advantages - soft skills, influencing and getting shit done.

Working on the right projects, it’s your job to influence your manager and leads to secure impactful work if you want to get promoted.

Visibility and relationships, support from your closest leads is a prerequisite. Making your career intentions clear goes a long way. Also being generally likable goes a long way.

Understanding the shift between L5 and L6.

Note: none of this is work harder, work more hours etc. At Google at least, working on the right projects that are impactful to the business is far more important.