Brian Pulliam spent nearly a decade in tech, climbing from program manager to engineering manager. He eyed a group manager role at Zillow—the position that lured him there in 2016. Then it vanished. The company retired it. Four years of effort, gone. Layoffs followed. Now, at 51, he’s a full-time career coach in Issaquah, Washington, earning less but finding deeper satisfaction.
Pulliam’s story, detailed in Business Insider, captures a harsh truth for many professionals. Hard work builds skills. It doesn’t always deliver titles. Pulliam started in athletics coaching for 13 years before switching to computer science and landing at Microsoft. There, he managed teams and taught data visualization. Zillow offered fresh ground: project manager for CI/CD pipelines, ensuring smooth deployments across workflows.
He thrived. Managed roadmaps. Led standups, retrospectives, sprint planning. Advanced to engineering manager over four to six software engineers. All aimed at that group manager spot, overseeing PMs and engineering leads. But Zillow restructured. The role disappeared. ‘I suddenly felt like I wasn’t working toward anything,’ Pulliam recounted.
Layoffs hit. He joined Coinbase for a leadership gig. Side experiments beckoned—coaching. He’d launched Zillow’s first #dev-manager Slack channel and monthly lunches, testing his teaching style on leaders. Athletics coaching skills transferred. ‘Can I effectively apply my expertise in athletics coaching to engineering and, eventually, career coaching?’ he wondered.
Coaching hooked him. Coinbase lasted a year before another layoff. By 2022, he went full-time. ‘Helping people with their jobs has a far longer return on investment. Sometimes it’s decades of their careers.’ He guides engineers and leaders to rewarding tech roles. Teaches standout interview anecdotes. Stresses mindset: ‘You can’t expect everything to change to favor you and your circumstances. You have to create and find the opportunities that excite you.’
Why Promotions Stall—And How Visibility Changes the Game
Pulliam’s pivot echoes broader patterns. Tech layoffs since 2022 have forced thousands to rethink paths. Many, like him, discover fulfillment outside corporate ladders. But his advice resonates amid recent chatter. On X, Kevin Box warns: ‘The fastest way to get overlooked for a promotion is to stay quiet and hope they notice.’ He lists tactics: own outcomes, make leaders feel impact, build narratives around value. That thread from May 4, 2026, urges auditing environments where recognition lags.
Abubakar A Sadeeq adds: ‘Companies don’t reward effort. They reward visibility + perceived impact.’ Weekly win updates. Speaking in meetings. Framing work by business change. His April 17 post went viral, with thousands agreeing quiet grinders fade. Pejuola, an HR voice, calls staying silent the biggest first-job mistake. ‘The junior staff who ask questions, volunteer for projects… those are the ones who get promoted.’ Her April 13 advice stresses making yourself impossible to ignore.
TrueRefuge nails it: ‘Hard work by itself doesn’t guarantee success or promotion. Visibility, relationships, and speaking up… matter just as much.’ Posted May 4, it hit on self-advocacy. Unfiltered’s list drives home habits: arrive early, own mistakes, share wins, network internally. From April 4, it insists nobody promotes quiet work.
Abhishek Singh shares a dev tale: a colleague grabbed messy projects others dodged—legacy code, confused stakeholders. He clarified, progressed, got promoted. ‘Promotions stop being about… the fanciest service. They start becoming about who can reduce uncertainty for the business.’ April 15.
These voices align with Pulliam. At Zillow, he built communities, shared practices—early visibility tests. Layoffs clarified priorities. ‘Business results and people results are the same; it depends on what you value more.’ He updates frameworks per client, adding tactics. Pay dips. Fulfillment soars.
But not everyone pivots so neatly. A Pleated Jeans story from April 23 profiles an all-star told she’s ‘too good’ at her job—promotion delayed to 2028 lest they lose her output. Echoes the ‘irreplaceable trap’ in a LinkedIn post by Maryann Jamieson, May 3: bosses keep stars in place, creating gaps they’d struggle to fill.
Gen Z flips scripts. One rejected a management offer requiring over 40 hours, per career coach Simon Ingari’s Economic Times account, April 21. ‘That’s not what I want. I am happy.’ Boundaries over titles.
Pulliam embodies adaptation. From Microsoft stability to Zillow ambition, Coinbase stint, coaching freedom. Experiments affirmed passion. Layoffs accelerated exit. Now he preps clients for conflict questions, mindset shifts. ‘I keep up with my small and big experiments… I’ve amassed many methodologies.’
His lesson? Ladders break. Build your own. Tech’s shorter solution half-lives, AI rise—ROI wanes. Helping careers endure decades? Priceless. Pulliam proves it. Many follow.
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