3 ms·

Good perspective, pbiggar. Question for clarification: Do those ICs making "a lot" report to managers that make more, less or equal (generally speaking of cour

• pbiggar 8y ago
  Everything is highly situational. I couldn't tell you whether it's better to have your most valuable ICs managed by the best managers, or whether the most valuable ICs need only limited management and you should have your best managers focusing on improving more junior engineers. (This assumes that the "managers" are strictly people managers. Often, managers might do some or all of managing teams, products, releases, people, or technical leadership. It certainly wouldn't be unheard of to have a manager's team include an engineer far senior to the manager.)
• sulam 8y ago
  I’ve managed people who were paid an order of magnitude more than I was making. I currently make more than most managers whose compensation I know at my current employer. (I technically make a LOT more than my manager, but special circumstances there.) So it’s not unheard of. It is fairly uncommon however, the average manager is probably making somewhat more than the average engineer they manage at the large tech companies.
• sardonicbryan 8y ago
  At my company, the most senior ICs (Principal Engineer, Chief Architect) report into the CTO, so the "manager" in this scenario they don't make more than their direct "manager," but likely more than every other manager in the org. I think this is a pretty common structure for companies that actually have an IC track that goes being senior engineer.