work one's way

It’s self-evident that watching and thinking about movies would be an important way to learn about making movies—especially in the absence of the traditional path to movie-making, which was to get a job in the business and work one’s way up.

But then, of course, one does not work one's way into a final of a championship for conversational purposes, or for debating the merits of the sixth sub-section of one of the rules of golf.

You may not acknowledge to yourself what has driven you into those ranks, but I will tell you how it is: to be a clever engineer, and gradually work one's way up to be chief-engineer, is an honorable career, but much too modest a one for a man of a disposition like yours.

Here and there, were groups talking aloud, and before the printing-office of the principal newspaper, it was almost impossible to work one's way through the crowd.

It was a difficult and tedious process to work one's way through amongst them, for they seemed to dovetail into one another, and often I had to make a considerable détour to get round the worst of them.