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Is it possible you are conflating positional power with earning power? Your earning power is not limited by staying on the IC track in this setup. Positional po

Is it possible you are conflating positional power with earning power? Your earning power is not limited by staying on the IC track in this setup. Positional power is always dependent on where you are in the organization and what your actual job in the organization happens to be.

bradleyjg 7y ago
That’s not true either. Who’s the highest compensated person at Square? Is he a manager or an IC? The root poster is absolutely correct. The responses that say you can have a great life without climbing to the top of the highest ladder are also correct, but they aren’t refuting what the root post says. Also, while things look pretty rosy for senior ICs right now, I wonder how many people lauding that path are in their forties or older. It’s one thing to be a respected principal engineer in a strong economy but what about if we hit another recession and your third wave tech company gets bought out by IBM?
- ryandrake 7y ago
  If a company claims to have “parallel and equal tracks” ask them how many VP equivalent individual contributors they have and how many manager VPs they have. Ask then what the CEO-equivalent individual contributor role entails.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    This gets pretty tricky at some point, because there are a lot of hybrid people. The "standard" image of a VP is someone who has multiple directors reporting to them, and probably 50+ (really 100+) indirect reports. So what about a VP-equivalent with 5 direct reports who are all ICs? That person isn't an IC, but they're also not really a people manager, they're like a really high impact TLM. Do they count more as the first, or the second?
- vageli 7y ago
  > That’s not true either. Who’s the highest compensated person at Square? Is he a manager or an IC? > The root poster is absolutely correct. The responses that say you can have a great life without climbing to the top of the highest ladder are also correct, but they aren’t refuting what the root post says. > Also, while things look pretty rosy for senior ICs right now, I wonder how many people lauding that path are in their forties or older. It’s one thing to be a respected principal engineer in a strong economy but what about if we hit another recession and your third wave tech company gets bought out by IBM? I was with you until the very last part of the very last sentence. In my experience, often times where there is management duplication they will trim management (we don't need _all_ of these engineering managers do we?) but keep performing ICs.
  - bradleyjg 7y ago
    That’s true, probably slightly less likely to be fired than a middle manager, though your salary is going to be a juicy target. But if you do it’s a lot less scary interviewing while middle aged for manager roles than it is for IC roles. Age discrimination in this industry is very real (notwithstanding the tired excuses we see in every thread on the subject.) People that are in their late 20s or early 30s need to start thinking about this. Right now you’re the age that the industry loves for “senior” ICs but mid 30s come on fast.
    - nilkn 7y ago
      This was a major motivator for me going into management. I don't necessarily like the role more, and overall there are fewer jobs for engineering managers than there are for engineers. Yet as I get older (and I'm not that old either) I feel I have much more long-term job security and stability in being a manager.
- prepend 7y ago
  People like Vint Cerf are pretty old and been through lots of ups and downs.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    I mean.. he’s largely at the executive level and co-invented tcp/ip. He is foundational in the development of the Internet so he sort of is an outlier.
    - mixmastamyk 7y ago
      Sort of? An internet god, really. We can't all be Vint Cerf's.
- iaresee 7y ago
  If you exclude the CEO at many SV companies there are most certainly ICs who make as much as people at that level all over the Bay. Certainly that’s true at Square.
  - bradleyjg 7y ago
    I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. Okay exclude the CEO (why though?), are you saying the second highest compensated person at Square is an IC?
    - iaresee 7y ago
      Yes. The second highest paid person at Square is likely an IC. There are a number of year zero ICs there still that aren’t reporting to Jack. Exclude the CEO because it’s a singular position. Only one person can be CEO. There’s no IC equivalent to it because it’s a unique position.
  - dilyevsky 7y ago
    More like CEO, all other Cs, SVPs and VPs, then yeah! Basically principal tops out at sr director MAYBE
  - schrodinger 7y ago
    That’s probably true, but there are a lot less highly paid ICs at the top than there are highly paid managers. So yes, you _can_ make the same, but your odds are a lot worse.
    - iaresee 7y ago
      I don’t disagree with the imbalance or odds. Impact required to be that highly paid an IC usually boils down to “create the thing the company earns a large portion of its revenue selling” which is tough to do, especially more than once.
dublidu 7y ago
Just look at the top paid 10% of any of these engineering organizations and you will find far more managers/directors than individual contributors.

bradleyjg 7y ago

That’s not true either. Who’s the highest compensated person at Square? Is he a manager or an IC? The root poster is absolutely correct. The responses that say you can have a great life without climbing to the top of the highest ladder are also correct, but they aren’t refuting what the root post says. Also, while things look pretty rosy for senior ICs right now, I wonder how many people lauding that path are in their forties or older. It’s one thing to be a respected principal engineer in a strong economy but what about if we hit another recession and your third wave tech company gets bought out by IBM?

ryandrake 7y ago
If a company claims to have “parallel and equal tracks” ask them how many VP equivalent individual contributors they have and how many manager VPs they have. Ask then what the CEO-equivalent individual contributor role entails.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  This gets pretty tricky at some point, because there are a lot of hybrid people. The "standard" image of a VP is someone who has multiple directors reporting to them, and probably 50+ (really 100+) indirect reports. So what about a VP-equivalent with 5 direct reports who are all ICs? That person isn't an IC, but they're also not really a people manager, they're like a really high impact TLM. Do they count more as the first, or the second?
vageli 7y ago
> That’s not true either. Who’s the highest compensated person at Square? Is he a manager or an IC? > The root poster is absolutely correct. The responses that say you can have a great life without climbing to the top of the highest ladder are also correct, but they aren’t refuting what the root post says. > Also, while things look pretty rosy for senior ICs right now, I wonder how many people lauding that path are in their forties or older. It’s one thing to be a respected principal engineer in a strong economy but what about if we hit another recession and your third wave tech company gets bought out by IBM? I was with you until the very last part of the very last sentence. In my experience, often times where there is management duplication they will trim management (we don't need _all_ of these engineering managers do we?) but keep performing ICs.
- bradleyjg 7y ago
  That’s true, probably slightly less likely to be fired than a middle manager, though your salary is going to be a juicy target. But if you do it’s a lot less scary interviewing while middle aged for manager roles than it is for IC roles. Age discrimination in this industry is very real (notwithstanding the tired excuses we see in every thread on the subject.) People that are in their late 20s or early 30s need to start thinking about this. Right now you’re the age that the industry loves for “senior” ICs but mid 30s come on fast.
  - nilkn 7y ago
    This was a major motivator for me going into management. I don't necessarily like the role more, and overall there are fewer jobs for engineering managers than there are for engineers. Yet as I get older (and I'm not that old either) I feel I have much more long-term job security and stability in being a manager.
prepend 7y ago
People like Vint Cerf are pretty old and been through lots of ups and downs.
- sjg007 7y ago
  I mean.. he’s largely at the executive level and co-invented tcp/ip. He is foundational in the development of the Internet so he sort of is an outlier.
  - mixmastamyk 7y ago
    Sort of? An internet god, really. We can't all be Vint Cerf's.
iaresee 7y ago
If you exclude the CEO at many SV companies there are most certainly ICs who make as much as people at that level all over the Bay. Certainly that’s true at Square.
- bradleyjg 7y ago
  I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. Okay exclude the CEO (why though?), are you saying the second highest compensated person at Square is an IC?
  - iaresee 7y ago
    Yes. The second highest paid person at Square is likely an IC. There are a number of year zero ICs there still that aren’t reporting to Jack. Exclude the CEO because it’s a singular position. Only one person can be CEO. There’s no IC equivalent to it because it’s a unique position.
- dilyevsky 7y ago
  More like CEO, all other Cs, SVPs and VPs, then yeah! Basically principal tops out at sr director MAYBE
- schrodinger 7y ago
  That’s probably true, but there are a lot less highly paid ICs at the top than there are highly paid managers. So yes, you _can_ make the same, but your odds are a lot worse.
  - iaresee 7y ago
    I don’t disagree with the imbalance or odds. Impact required to be that highly paid an IC usually boils down to “create the thing the company earns a large portion of its revenue selling” which is tough to do, especially more than once.

dublidu 7y ago

Just look at the top paid 10% of any of these engineering organizations and you will find far more managers/directors than individual contributors.