In my experience, people that feel chronically under-appreciated are also bad at self-promotion, and would be more appreciated if all of their contributions were actually known. Especially when you go above and beyond (the sort of thing you most want recognition for), it's often a proactive effort that may not have an obvious cause-effect benefit that's visible to anyone outside the situation.
I'm trying to wrap my head around your comment. How would one self-promote without coming off as arrogant or obnoxious? (And I'm not asking this snarkily; I'm genuinely curious.)
There's definitely a fine line to walk. However, it's not arrogant to keep whoever you report to apprised of what you're doing, why it matters to the business, and how you're accomplishing those things. Definitely no need to be a gloryhound or grandstand, but there's a lot of middle ground between arrogance and not taking credit for what you do.
Maybe self-promotion wasn't a good choice of words on my part. Effective professional communication might be a better way to put it.
One of the reasons I like having stand-up meetings every morning with my team is that it gives each developer an opportunity to talk up their recent accomplishments, and to receive praise (however transitory) from the rest of the team for them. Having something awesome to report in standup is a good motivator, and getting instant feedback helps drive home the relevance and value of those contributions.
Pure self-promotion is a naive strategy. Effective promotion of one's own work comes as an expected side effect of other more desirable activities. Sort of like getting good SEO by posting useful content on your company blog.
Rather than focusing on making yourself known, focus on identifying people who need problems solved. Meet with them directly, make sure they know you want to help, make sure they are comfortable with your solutions.
You should also make a point to identify and promote the successes of people you work with. In doing so you'll improve the team culture around you. Some those people will remember you kindly and promote your own stuff for you when appropriate.
Spend a lot of energy on problem solving and professional networking and you'll get there.
I dislike promoting my most valuable work, because the most valuable work I do isn't glamorous - it's more often dirty and tedious (where there's muck, there's brass... but who wants to talk about muck?).
