I am always looking for new ways to gain more exposure and build recognition amongst my teammates and managers. After all, in order to progress, this is a necessity. This can be especially challenging in a new job/company in addition to the new environment of remote work and async culture, which means less casual, low-pressure face time that would traditionally allow you to build rapport.

In a remote world, we begin to associate those who command meetings as the natural leaders on the team, and these types of scenarios favor those who are more outspoken. As a software engineer, the role is by definition, more secluded. It requires uninterrupted blocks of time to solve problems and build solutions. Therefore, there is a scarcity of opportunities outside of that work to become recognized for leadership. When meetings do occur, they are usually larger groups and I personally tend to default on zoom meetings to microphone-off active listening, until I have a strong opinion about something. But in order to grow professionally, we need our senior team-members and higher ups to see us as someone with leadership skills.

In order for that to happen, we need to become more involved during the few times we have.

One of the most low risk opportunities for doing this, is through meeting facilitation.

The role of a meeting facilitator is to moderate the conversation during your team gathering or meeting. They set the tone for the meeting and keep the agenda on-track. Meeting facilitators ensure the everyone has a chance to participate in the meeting and creates an inclusive meeting environment.

This is a great opportunity because it doesn't require you to be a subject matter expert in anything being discussed. There is no pressure on you to have the answers. Instead, it is your job to "pass the ball" and let your teammates hit the outside jumper. If you notice that some teammates are less outspoken but look like they have something to say, give them the space to contribute.

The only real preparation that is required, is an outline or agenda of topics to cover. This gives the meeting structure and cadence so that it runs smoothly. Prior to the meeting you can build up the agenda by taking notice of potential topics of discussion ( things that came up in other meetings, or slack threads that were divisive or interesting )

During the meeting, kick-off the discussion around each item and ask for the owner of that item to provide more context. When the discussion seems to be fizzling, try restating the general consensus and asking if there are any actions items necessary to follow up on.

If a single discussion is getting out of hand, do your best to reel it in and give others a chance to speak.

That's really it. Doing this effectively reduces the cognitive load on the rest of your team to try and fill awkward silences. They will be grateful for this and view you as an effective facilitator, which in turn, means you are an effective communicator. Coming up with an agenda also shows your organization skills.

So if your team has a recurring meeting ( our dev team has bi-weekly frontend guilds and bi-weekly typescript discussions ), ask one of your teammates if you can help facilitate and set the agenda while someone else takes notes.