11 ms·

I’ve been reviewing a lot of career path documents recently for different engineering orgs, and every one is fairly uniform in that you either progress into man

I’ve been reviewing a lot of career path documents recently for different engineering orgs, and every one is fairly uniform in that you either progress into management, team leadership, or architecture (or some blend of the three). If not, you’ll stagnate at a pretty high level, but stagnate none the less. I’ve been noodling on this for a while, and I think maybe a fourth track at a lot of organizations should be special projects. Small teams (3 people max) given autonomy and clear objectives (revenue goals, user growth goals, etc). For a pre existing company, this likely means “hacking” on an existing product, experimenting on something new, tackling huge debt... Pick your poison. This is a fine middle ground for someone with a lot of experience who doesn’t want to manage, but still wants some growth opportunities. For many people who don’t want to manage or be an architect, autonomy is the number one thing I regularly hear. So, give them the autonomy and some ground rules, then let them loose.

augbog 7y ago
This sounds fucking awesome and would definitely make me want to stay as an engineer.
heipei 7y ago
Thank you for saying that, this was exactly my conclusion when reviewing my own goals and notes on how other companies build products. If your company doesn't have this special-projects track in place, then your only option at some point is to quit and start your own thing I'm afraid.
- blub 7y ago
  ...or move into architecture or management. That seems like the more reasonable thing compared to playing the start-up lottery.
  - heipei 7y ago
    Yeah, but parent mentioned "autonomy" as the driving force for people who'd want this track, and I'm very much in the same situation. Management or architecture won't give you the same level as autonomy as working in one of these small "Tiger teams" (thanks to sibling for pointing out that term)
    - blub 7y ago
      You really think that you can spend most of your time designing and coding as a contractor or start-up founder? You are literally a one man marketing and finance department.
      - mooreds 7y ago
        > You really think that you can spend most of your time designing and coding as a contractor or start-up founder? Sure, if you don't mind failing. :) I agree with blub. Coding and designing is part of a startup but if you spend a second more doing that than you have to, you are setting your company up to fail. Instead you should be talking to customers and churning out whatever the absolute minimum code is that will validate your market.
        wjossey 7y ago
        I spend a huge amount of time coding as a startup founder, but also a huge amount of time doing 10 other things too. Owning your own business tends to mean doing a lot of everything, with coding just being one of those things.
- wjossey 7y ago
  Nah. You can advocate for change! Someone has to be the catalyst, why not you?
ignoramous 7y ago
What you aspire sounds close to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_team In one instance that I know, a Tiger Team of 6 delivered run away hit TV streaming product in 8 months. From conception to design to prototype to factory production to launch. Another, albeit larger scale example would be Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works
- crowbahr 7y ago
  Sounds also like the Google X branch.
  - ignoramous 7y ago
    A different take on this approach is by Cisco: They spin off products, fund the team, and later acquire them. An instance: https://www.businessinsider.in/Why-Cisco-Has-Showered-These-Three-Men-With-Billions-Of-Dollars/articleshow/43088562.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/Why-Cisco-Has-Showered-These-...
blub 7y ago
Isn't this more or less what Google does with all their profitless projects? Giving senior engineers something to play with so that they don't leave for the competition or create new competition. I guess it's nice for the devs at first, but creates a lot of waste. They're basically spamming the world with programming languages, libraries and products only to wind them down and start again.
- marmaduke 7y ago
  > They're basically spamming the world with programming languages, libraries and products only to wind them down and start again Replace libraries, languages and products with statistics, hypotheses and figures and you have described scientific research. The point is that each iteration learns from the last, in principle, even if they aren’t backwards or forwards compatible.
  - TelmoMenezes 7y ago
    Replace statistics, hypotheses and figures with bread, donuts and cake and you have described a bakery. Hmmm cake... How can you not like cake?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - marmaduke 7y ago
      I do like cake. But I think baked goods are somewhat solved problem.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    > Replace libraries, languages and products with statistics, hypotheses and figures and you have described scientific research. Well, yes - and the inability to build on previous research code because people don't publish it results in a colossal waste of (usually) public money. Nonreproducibility in science, and Google's abandoning of products, are phenomena that resemble one another somewhat.
- 7y ago
doppel 7y ago
I read this article a few months ago about being a Principal Engineer, https://blog.dbsmasher.com/2019/01/28/on-being-a-principal-engineer.html https://blog.dbsmasher.com/2019/01/28/on-being-a-principal-e..., and ever since it’s been my designated career path / plan. I am in the lucky position of working in a small-but-growing team of developers, so I get to choose my career advancement and have support to follow this road. I think a principal engineer is the right mix of (still) developing, planning, mentoring and potentially leading small teams, while staying out of a full-on managerial role.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  I thought this was my dream as well, until I found out it basically brings you all the responsibilities of management, without any of the rewards.
  - sethammons 7y ago
    Which rewards? If it is salary, at least for us (I work with the author of the referenced article), we strive to keep those levels the same on the technical and managerial track.
    - wellreally 7y ago
      How many engineers vs managers are there in your company at that level and at the levels above it? It's rare to see a big tech company with as many engineers as managers at the Director compensation level, for example.
- awinder 7y ago
  I hopped between lead -> manager -> lead and I agree, though it’s informative to see the problem approached from both sides if you can stomach a manager stint (I had much trouble). Lead/Manager pairs have roughly the same success metrics IMO but split responsibilities and focus areas so you’re definitely right there, in my experience manager/lead is the same level on different career paths
jasonkester 7y ago
A better fourth path is to transition to running your own business. You still get to write the code, and you remove the salary cap. People sweat about all the “Business Stuff” you have to do in addition, but I find it’s not really any more of your day than the normal boring admin stuff of being a rank and file developer. Certainly less than being a manager at a bigco. It also does away with ageism concerns.
- tomduncalf 7y ago
  I don’t know how it works in the US but in the U.K. becoming a contractor can provide a good half way house between being employed and running your own company. You’re not an employee so no performance reviews or line management and you are responsible for running your own company, but at the same time many contracts will be working with teams of permanent staff for 6 months or more so it’s not like you are off totally on your own having to invent new products or hunt for projects. I’d guess the remuneration can match that of a manager after you’ve been doing it for a while, but you’re essentially a technical expert who’s expected to be able to hit the ground running quickly and add a lot of value at each client. My impression is that demand for good contractors outstrips supply right now (it can make sense for companies with fixed budgets or tight timelines to hire contractors despite a higher per-day cost) and the business side really isn’t that complicated, so it is a fairly well trodden path by good developers at a certain point in their career. Of course, if you are someone who feels like they benefit from having the company structure (eg in terms of management, training, etc) or doesn’t like changing company fairly often it’s probably not for you! Edit: forgot about this guide posted to HN a while ago: https://github.com/tadast/switching-to-contracting-uk/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/tadast/switching-to-contracting-uk/blob/m...
  - aetherspawn 7y ago
    How do you, as a contractor, find this sort of work?
    - tomduncalf 7y ago
      Personally I’ve been lucky enough to find it via word of mouth/recommendation and also directly approaching clients. Most contractors get their work through recruiters though, if you mention to a recruiter you are interested in contract work you’ll start getting a ton of phone calls and emails. It’s not uncommon for contracts to get extended several times, and you’ll probably build up a network of other contractors quite quickly. One thing you might find is getting your first contract is hard if you are in a permanent job - companies generally are looking for contractors to start ASAP, so a one month notice period (with the risk that you get tempted to stay at your existing company) is often not acceptable to them. Some clients will wait for the right person but you might find you need to quit your job first before finding work which can be a bit nerve wracking - so it’s wise to survey the market, talk to recruiters etc. for a while before doing so! If you’re UK based https://github.com/tadast/switching-to-contracting-uk/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/tadast/switching-to-contracting-uk/blob/m... may be interesting.
Aeolun 7y ago
Since you seem to have some idea of what an Architect is, can you explain this to me? As far as I’m concerned they’re the people that run around flooding every meeting with words that have already been said by the developers, and by extension do not need to be said.
- indogooner 7y ago
  Yes the average ones are like that but the good ones I have seen provide a broader perspective, simplify solution, prevent the excited devs from trying out complicated solution with hyped but unsuitable technologies among other things. They save so much time and effort of an org that they are much more valuable than many managers.
  - kaetemi 7y ago
    So many self-proclaimed architects who do literally the opposite.
    - laythea 7y ago
      Agree there are, but that's why you can usually spot the ones who aren't, quite readily.
    - Aeolun 7y ago
      We need extra layers and proxies! For, uh, security reasons!
- ownagefool 7y ago
  Depends on the company. Big orgs with lots of outsourcing, architects are supposed to police the result to make sure it's semi decent. But since they've long since gave up doing any real work, they tend to be people who buy really expensive crap to cover their arse. In smaller orgs, it can almost be just a lead dev with a fancy title. Rarely does the title seem appopriate, but some of the folks with the title are good regardless.
  - 7y ago
neilv 7y ago
I was in a group a bit like that. It was small product-focused R&D team of ~6 people, charged with figuring out an emerging disruptive industry change, and building a new product line for that. (The rest of the company was directed not to even allude to our existence, since that might interfere with sales of the current products, and we even had a stealthy group name.) Except for me, who was the token enthusiastic kid, it was hand-picked from among the top engineers in the company. This particular group had a manager. One of my favorite bosses, who was very sharp as both engineer and manager, honest, humble, and supportive (and formative of some of my ideas of what I should aspire to).
- miemo 7y ago
  How did you find working in that environment compared to some other projects with clearer direction?
  - neilv 7y ago
    I loved it. I think the team lead managed it well. It helped that we already had insight into the old problem domain, and how it was changing. And experienced engineers can generally collaborate effectively, as well as work self-directed. It's not that different than any project with a novel component. Some projects ("Uber, for cats!") are mostly a matter of executing in some well-understood ways as soon as you hear the idea (set up your tools, use these frameworks, on this cloud configuration, and have frontend and backend start grinding through the tasks, while you're plugging them into the plan, and scheduling for demos or MVP launch or whatever). But other projects have more upfront domain knowledge to acquire, brainstorming, requirements analysis, market analysis, prototyping, figuring out possibilities, deciding what you will do, etc. In the latter, eventually it probably turns into a conventional fairly predictable project (although there might still be tricky problems to solve in the pieces, but you have a good idea where you want to go and what the pieces are).
- ukoki 7y ago
  > charged with figuring out an emerging disruptive industry change And did you? — I'm really curious as to whether there ended up being a positive ROI from dedicating those top engineers to that task.
mads 7y ago
I used to have the same idea about those small teams given autonomy to hack and get some clear objective done whatever it takes. I think a lot of corporate environments is really missing this option. In my mind they were called "swat teams".
- wjossey 7y ago
  At my prior position, that was the term as well. I ran said team. That being said, it wasn’t codified in our career mapping. It was sort of a “one off” experiment.
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
I wrote a way more verbose response, but deleted it and substitute this: > down to the woman who worked the front desk Maybe she's on to something.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mlthoughts2018 7y ago
Most of the companies I’ve worked for have utterly no possible capacity for formally managing special projects. It will either be an argument over what business goals the project must serve, whose autonomy gets to drive the project, politics about who gets to work on what. The only successful special projects I’ve ever seen are ones that are off the books initially, possibly even pissing off product managers or others because engineers essentially have to flippantly disregard the official prioritization of tasks according to non-engineers and just override it with what the engineer can easily see is actually more important from a genuine business/product perspective but can’t waste the time trying to jump through the hoops of political jockeying disingenuously asserted to be sincere evidence gathering to satisfy all the other competing interests and credit grabs.
- sk5t 7y ago
  I've done special projects at a large, somewhat stodgy company, and the general pattern was that you had about nine months to do good work, just engineering and business folks together, after which point the "project management office" would get their hooks into it, and any further scheduled meetings would be prevented from achieving anything productive in deference to the new project manager's interest in gantt charts.
  - maxxxxx 7y ago
    Special projects also often get handed to a consulting company and not to in-house staff
ptero 7y ago
> If not, you’ll stagnate at a pretty high level, but stagnate none the less. It may be semantics, but I think "stagnating at a pretty high level" may be a pretty good endgame for a smart engineer who does not want to go to either people or technology management. If this means significant autonomy, mentoring role and decent compensation what is wrong with stagnating at this level? This is not for everyone, bit may be OK for some. An honest question.
- exelius 7y ago
  The person who has “stagnated” while drawing a high salary will be the first one let go when the economy gets less rosy.
- wjossey 7y ago
  Not in my book. Don’t let yourself be peter principled if you know you’re exactly where you want to be. Not everyone is that self aware, but there’s no shame in choosing your own path. Counter to my own point, I have had conversations with HR individuals who encourage managers to fire employees that don’t get promoted every ~2 years. Basically their thought is that is an easy way to identify “bottom” performers. I don’t agree with this sentiment, but it’s not an unheard of position.
- noelsusman 7y ago
  This is my plan. We'll see how it works out, but my endgame is a technical lead on a relatively small team. I watched my father get promoted into unhappiness. He didn't realize it until it was too late. For his most recent promotion they had to threaten to fire him to get him to take it.
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  There is nothing wrong with stagnating but in a lot of companies the stagnation level for engineers is pretty low compared to management. You also have to deal with the fact management has decision power so you often get overridden by less qualified people who happen to be in management.
  - 7y ago
maxxxxx 7y ago
" I think maybe a fourth track at a lot of organizations should be special projects. Small teams (3 people max) given autonomy and clear objectives (revenue goals, user growth goals, etc). " I have been thinking about that too. I am pretty experienced and the best use for me would be to get something off the ground quickly to working through a hard problem . I have seen a lot so usually my instincts are pretty good and I am much faster in responding to problems than the less experienced are. I also have the confidence to make decisions and take responsibility without needing approval from multiple parties. A lot of companies like to talk about being "agile" and "like a startup" but they rarely let engineers stay focused on a problem, leave them alone and let them work through it.
- wjossey 7y ago
  I’d highly recommend you start laying the ground work for this to become your reality. It may take six to twelve months, but some simple repetition around proposing this as an option may turn out well for you! When I work with managers who need to create change, I remind them that it took years for institutional baggage to grow. It’s reasonable to assume that it will take at minimum months to unravel.
closeparen 7y ago
The other cool beyond-Senior role I’ve seen is “roaming fixer.” Take your pick form the engineering org’s hardest problems, conscript your pick of regular engineers into your service for a few months, go solve it. When you’re done, pick another one.

augbog 7y ago

This sounds fucking awesome and would definitely make me want to stay as an engineer.

heipei 7y ago

Thank you for saying that, this was exactly my conclusion when reviewing my own goals and notes on how other companies build products. If your company doesn't have this special-projects track in place, then your only option at some point is to quit and start your own thing I'm afraid.

blub 7y ago
...or move into architecture or management. That seems like the more reasonable thing compared to playing the start-up lottery.
- heipei 7y ago
  Yeah, but parent mentioned "autonomy" as the driving force for people who'd want this track, and I'm very much in the same situation. Management or architecture won't give you the same level as autonomy as working in one of these small "Tiger teams" (thanks to sibling for pointing out that term)
  - blub 7y ago
    You really think that you can spend most of your time designing and coding as a contractor or start-up founder? You are literally a one man marketing and finance department.
    - mooreds 7y ago
      > You really think that you can spend most of your time designing and coding as a contractor or start-up founder? Sure, if you don't mind failing. :) I agree with blub. Coding and designing is part of a startup but if you spend a second more doing that than you have to, you are setting your company up to fail. Instead you should be talking to customers and churning out whatever the absolute minimum code is that will validate your market.
      - wjossey 7y ago
        I spend a huge amount of time coding as a startup founder, but also a huge amount of time doing 10 other things too. Owning your own business tends to mean doing a lot of everything, with coding just being one of those things.
wjossey 7y ago
Nah. You can advocate for change! Someone has to be the catalyst, why not you?

ignoramous 7y ago

What you aspire sounds close to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_team In one instance that I know, a Tiger Team of 6 delivered run away hit TV streaming product in 8 months. From conception to design to prototype to factory production to launch. Another, albeit larger scale example would be Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works

crowbahr 7y ago
Sounds also like the Google X branch.
- ignoramous 7y ago
  A different take on this approach is by Cisco: They spin off products, fund the team, and later acquire them. An instance: https://www.businessinsider.in/Why-Cisco-Has-Showered-These-Three-Men-With-Billions-Of-Dollars/articleshow/43088562.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/Why-Cisco-Has-Showered-These-...

blub 7y ago

Isn't this more or less what Google does with all their profitless projects? Giving senior engineers something to play with so that they don't leave for the competition or create new competition. I guess it's nice for the devs at first, but creates a lot of waste. They're basically spamming the world with programming languages, libraries and products only to wind them down and start again.

marmaduke 7y ago
> They're basically spamming the world with programming languages, libraries and products only to wind them down and start again Replace libraries, languages and products with statistics, hypotheses and figures and you have described scientific research. The point is that each iteration learns from the last, in principle, even if they aren’t backwards or forwards compatible.
- TelmoMenezes 7y ago
  Replace statistics, hypotheses and figures with bread, donuts and cake and you have described a bakery. Hmmm cake... How can you not like cake?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - marmaduke 7y ago
    I do like cake. But I think baked goods are somewhat solved problem.
- pjc50 7y ago
  > Replace libraries, languages and products with statistics, hypotheses and figures and you have described scientific research. Well, yes - and the inability to build on previous research code because people don't publish it results in a colossal waste of (usually) public money. Nonreproducibility in science, and Google's abandoning of products, are phenomena that resemble one another somewhat.
7y ago

doppel 7y ago

I read this article a few months ago about being a Principal Engineer, https://blog.dbsmasher.com/2019/01/28/on-being-a-principal-engineer.html https://blog.dbsmasher.com/2019/01/28/on-being-a-principal-e..., and ever since it’s been my designated career path / plan. I am in the lucky position of working in a small-but-growing team of developers, so I get to choose my career advancement and have support to follow this road. I think a principal engineer is the right mix of (still) developing, planning, mentoring and potentially leading small teams, while staying out of a full-on managerial role.

Aeolun 7y ago
I thought this was my dream as well, until I found out it basically brings you all the responsibilities of management, without any of the rewards.
- sethammons 7y ago
  Which rewards? If it is salary, at least for us (I work with the author of the referenced article), we strive to keep those levels the same on the technical and managerial track.
  - wellreally 7y ago
    How many engineers vs managers are there in your company at that level and at the levels above it? It's rare to see a big tech company with as many engineers as managers at the Director compensation level, for example.
awinder 7y ago
I hopped between lead -> manager -> lead and I agree, though it’s informative to see the problem approached from both sides if you can stomach a manager stint (I had much trouble). Lead/Manager pairs have roughly the same success metrics IMO but split responsibilities and focus areas so you’re definitely right there, in my experience manager/lead is the same level on different career paths

jasonkester 7y ago

A better fourth path is to transition to running your own business. You still get to write the code, and you remove the salary cap. People sweat about all the “Business Stuff” you have to do in addition, but I find it’s not really any more of your day than the normal boring admin stuff of being a rank and file developer. Certainly less than being a manager at a bigco. It also does away with ageism concerns.

tomduncalf 7y ago
I don’t know how it works in the US but in the U.K. becoming a contractor can provide a good half way house between being employed and running your own company. You’re not an employee so no performance reviews or line management and you are responsible for running your own company, but at the same time many contracts will be working with teams of permanent staff for 6 months or more so it’s not like you are off totally on your own having to invent new products or hunt for projects. I’d guess the remuneration can match that of a manager after you’ve been doing it for a while, but you’re essentially a technical expert who’s expected to be able to hit the ground running quickly and add a lot of value at each client. My impression is that demand for good contractors outstrips supply right now (it can make sense for companies with fixed budgets or tight timelines to hire contractors despite a higher per-day cost) and the business side really isn’t that complicated, so it is a fairly well trodden path by good developers at a certain point in their career. Of course, if you are someone who feels like they benefit from having the company structure (eg in terms of management, training, etc) or doesn’t like changing company fairly often it’s probably not for you! Edit: forgot about this guide posted to HN a while ago: https://github.com/tadast/switching-to-contracting-uk/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/tadast/switching-to-contracting-uk/blob/m...
- aetherspawn 7y ago
  How do you, as a contractor, find this sort of work?
  - tomduncalf 7y ago
    Personally I’ve been lucky enough to find it via word of mouth/recommendation and also directly approaching clients. Most contractors get their work through recruiters though, if you mention to a recruiter you are interested in contract work you’ll start getting a ton of phone calls and emails. It’s not uncommon for contracts to get extended several times, and you’ll probably build up a network of other contractors quite quickly. One thing you might find is getting your first contract is hard if you are in a permanent job - companies generally are looking for contractors to start ASAP, so a one month notice period (with the risk that you get tempted to stay at your existing company) is often not acceptable to them. Some clients will wait for the right person but you might find you need to quit your job first before finding work which can be a bit nerve wracking - so it’s wise to survey the market, talk to recruiters etc. for a while before doing so! If you’re UK based https://github.com/tadast/switching-to-contracting-uk/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/tadast/switching-to-contracting-uk/blob/m... may be interesting.

Aeolun 7y ago

Since you seem to have some idea of what an Architect is, can you explain this to me? As far as I’m concerned they’re the people that run around flooding every meeting with words that have already been said by the developers, and by extension do not need to be said.

indogooner 7y ago
Yes the average ones are like that but the good ones I have seen provide a broader perspective, simplify solution, prevent the excited devs from trying out complicated solution with hyped but unsuitable technologies among other things. They save so much time and effort of an org that they are much more valuable than many managers.
- kaetemi 7y ago
  So many self-proclaimed architects who do literally the opposite.
  - laythea 7y ago
    Agree there are, but that's why you can usually spot the ones who aren't, quite readily.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    We need extra layers and proxies! For, uh, security reasons!
ownagefool 7y ago
Depends on the company. Big orgs with lots of outsourcing, architects are supposed to police the result to make sure it's semi decent. But since they've long since gave up doing any real work, they tend to be people who buy really expensive crap to cover their arse. In smaller orgs, it can almost be just a lead dev with a fancy title. Rarely does the title seem appopriate, but some of the folks with the title are good regardless.
- 7y ago

neilv 7y ago

I was in a group a bit like that. It was small product-focused R&D team of ~6 people, charged with figuring out an emerging disruptive industry change, and building a new product line for that. (The rest of the company was directed not to even allude to our existence, since that might interfere with sales of the current products, and we even had a stealthy group name.) Except for me, who was the token enthusiastic kid, it was hand-picked from among the top engineers in the company. This particular group had a manager. One of my favorite bosses, who was very sharp as both engineer and manager, honest, humble, and supportive (and formative of some of my ideas of what I should aspire to).

miemo 7y ago
How did you find working in that environment compared to some other projects with clearer direction?
- neilv 7y ago
  I loved it. I think the team lead managed it well. It helped that we already had insight into the old problem domain, and how it was changing. And experienced engineers can generally collaborate effectively, as well as work self-directed. It's not that different than any project with a novel component. Some projects ("Uber, for cats!") are mostly a matter of executing in some well-understood ways as soon as you hear the idea (set up your tools, use these frameworks, on this cloud configuration, and have frontend and backend start grinding through the tasks, while you're plugging them into the plan, and scheduling for demos or MVP launch or whatever). But other projects have more upfront domain knowledge to acquire, brainstorming, requirements analysis, market analysis, prototyping, figuring out possibilities, deciding what you will do, etc. In the latter, eventually it probably turns into a conventional fairly predictable project (although there might still be tricky problems to solve in the pieces, but you have a good idea where you want to go and what the pieces are).
ukoki 7y ago
> charged with figuring out an emerging disruptive industry change And did you? — I'm really curious as to whether there ended up being a positive ROI from dedicating those top engineers to that task.

mads 7y ago

I used to have the same idea about those small teams given autonomy to hack and get some clear objective done whatever it takes. I think a lot of corporate environments is really missing this option. In my mind they were called "swat teams".

wjossey 7y ago
At my prior position, that was the term as well. I ran said team. That being said, it wasn’t codified in our career mapping. It was sort of a “one off” experiment.

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago

I wrote a way more verbose response, but deleted it and substitute this: > down to the woman who worked the front desk Maybe she's on to something.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mlthoughts2018 7y ago

Most of the companies I’ve worked for have utterly no possible capacity for formally managing special projects. It will either be an argument over what business goals the project must serve, whose autonomy gets to drive the project, politics about who gets to work on what. The only successful special projects I’ve ever seen are ones that are off the books initially, possibly even pissing off product managers or others because engineers essentially have to flippantly disregard the official prioritization of tasks according to non-engineers and just override it with what the engineer can easily see is actually more important from a genuine business/product perspective but can’t waste the time trying to jump through the hoops of political jockeying disingenuously asserted to be sincere evidence gathering to satisfy all the other competing interests and credit grabs.

sk5t 7y ago
I've done special projects at a large, somewhat stodgy company, and the general pattern was that you had about nine months to do good work, just engineering and business folks together, after which point the "project management office" would get their hooks into it, and any further scheduled meetings would be prevented from achieving anything productive in deference to the new project manager's interest in gantt charts.
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  Special projects also often get handed to a consulting company and not to in-house staff

ptero 7y ago

> If not, you’ll stagnate at a pretty high level, but stagnate none the less. It may be semantics, but I think "stagnating at a pretty high level" may be a pretty good endgame for a smart engineer who does not want to go to either people or technology management. If this means significant autonomy, mentoring role and decent compensation what is wrong with stagnating at this level? This is not for everyone, bit may be OK for some. An honest question.

exelius 7y ago
The person who has “stagnated” while drawing a high salary will be the first one let go when the economy gets less rosy.
wjossey 7y ago
Not in my book. Don’t let yourself be peter principled if you know you’re exactly where you want to be. Not everyone is that self aware, but there’s no shame in choosing your own path. Counter to my own point, I have had conversations with HR individuals who encourage managers to fire employees that don’t get promoted every ~2 years. Basically their thought is that is an easy way to identify “bottom” performers. I don’t agree with this sentiment, but it’s not an unheard of position.
noelsusman 7y ago
This is my plan. We'll see how it works out, but my endgame is a technical lead on a relatively small team. I watched my father get promoted into unhappiness. He didn't realize it until it was too late. For his most recent promotion they had to threaten to fire him to get him to take it.
maxxxxx 7y ago
There is nothing wrong with stagnating but in a lot of companies the stagnation level for engineers is pretty low compared to management. You also have to deal with the fact management has decision power so you often get overridden by less qualified people who happen to be in management.
- 7y ago

maxxxxx 7y ago

" I think maybe a fourth track at a lot of organizations should be special projects. Small teams (3 people max) given autonomy and clear objectives (revenue goals, user growth goals, etc). " I have been thinking about that too. I am pretty experienced and the best use for me would be to get something off the ground quickly to working through a hard problem . I have seen a lot so usually my instincts are pretty good and I am much faster in responding to problems than the less experienced are. I also have the confidence to make decisions and take responsibility without needing approval from multiple parties. A lot of companies like to talk about being "agile" and "like a startup" but they rarely let engineers stay focused on a problem, leave them alone and let them work through it.

wjossey 7y ago
I’d highly recommend you start laying the ground work for this to become your reality. It may take six to twelve months, but some simple repetition around proposing this as an option may turn out well for you! When I work with managers who need to create change, I remind them that it took years for institutional baggage to grow. It’s reasonable to assume that it will take at minimum months to unravel.

closeparen 7y ago

The other cool beyond-Senior role I’ve seen is “roaming fixer.” Take your pick form the engineering org’s hardest problems, conscript your pick of regular engineers into your service for a few months, go solve it. When you’re done, pick another one.