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"Take the incentive out of “climbing the ladder.” Some of the organization structure setup is not unique to Facebook. My former boss was a long time Microsoft
by devy 10y ago
"Take the incentive out of “climbing the ladder.”
Some of the organization structure setup is not unique to Facebook. My former boss was a long time Microsoft employee, from what I heard from her anecdotally, Microsoft has long been setup with dual tracks for technical employees. The management track and the engineer track. One moves from engineer track to management track is a true lateral move in that salary don't necessarily get raised even though responsibilities will vary and may expand.
Also, the rank on engineer track may also be converted to a lower rank in management track. On top of that, long tenured Distinguished Engineers might also get a much higher compensation than a mid-level manager.
Once the incentives are leveled up, personal interests and motivation really becomes the driver for employees to do their most appropriate job.
Obviously these were all anecdotal stories I heard. Microsoft now may also be different from the Microsoft then. I welcome someone who has first hand experience with similar organizational structure setup to clarify and elaborate on this.
- Retra 10y agoIBM is set up the same way, to a degree. They have "IBM fellows" who are essentially executive-level engineers. I don't think it extends all the way down though.
- devy 10y agoYeah, IBM might have been one of the earliest tech giants to setup dual track organizational structure although I don't know for sure.
- kawera 10y ago3M is another company with similar dual track system for engineers/scientists.
- astrange 10y agoAll large tech companies (Apple, MS, LinkedIn, Oracle, Google at least) have the same official ranks for engineers that go Senior, Staff, Distinguished, Fellow. But that doesn't mean anyone ever gets promoted up there. I think there's at most three Fellows in any of those companies at a time.
- jsudhams 10y agoWorked in Microsoft and i agree with what you said. We never had pressure of , if we don't get to management track with in certain year we may never make that means you might lose on monetary benefit.
- r00fus 10y agoIIRC, Microsoft still has a fellowship program. However, the gist of the matter is that despite being on-par with compensation (assuming metrics like years of experience / company tenure), a manager role is simply more powerful, allowing easier leverage for more compensation more quickly.
- biztos 10y agoAt most companies, Distinguished Engineer is the "technical track" equivalent of Vice President. So making more than a mid-level manager may not be all that great. :-) (I imagine Distinguised Engineers at MSFT do very well, and when you factor in quality of life may be happier with their jobs than VPs. But that doesn't make it parallel.)
- readams 10y agoThe problem is that most companies have a small handful of such people, and lots of vice presidents. They want you to think it's equivalent, but the reality is that, Facebook and anywhere, there's only so far you can go on the technical track.
- codeonfire 10y agoExactly. Managers decide who is high level on the engineering side and also want to save money and have high management salaries. It's completely stupid to think that there won't be 500 VP's and 3 distinguished engineers in this situation, which is how it exactly is at the large tech companies.
- serge2k 10y agoSeems to me the solution to that problem would be to make the salary bands for engineers wider, so you can keep growing salary wise even if you pretty much cap out in terms of technical ability.
- codeonfire 10y agoHow would that be a solution? The problem is that managers don't want to pay engineers and would rather pay themselves, so everything else follows from that.
- yason 10y agoIdeally, those should be in balance if the track are truly parallel. Thus, if 1% of engineers are in the highest, distinguished level then 1% of managers should be in the highest managerial level. If those 500 VPs amount to 10% of all managerial positions then they should be comparable in impact and salary to all those engineers whose engineer contributor level amounts to 10% of all engineering positions.