The Meeting Skill No Coding Bootcamp Teaches You

For the first three years of my career, I was invisible in meetings. I'd sit there, listen, nod, and leave. Sometimes I had an idea but didn't say it — I figured someone more experienced would say it better. Sometimes I had a question but stayed quiet because I assumed I was the only one who didn't understand. I was wrong on both counts. And I was accidentally killing my own career progression without realizing it. Meetings are where careers happen This sounds dramatic. It's not. Your manager's perception of your ability is built primarily in two places: the code you produce (which they might not read closely) and how you show up in meetings (which they see directly, every time). A developer who writes great code but says nothing in meetings is, from a manager's perspective, hard to evaluate. They might be brilliant. They might be struggling silently. The manager doesn't know, because they have no signal. A developer who writes decent code but communicates clearly in meetings — asks go