3 ms·

I read the article once and thought, "So at Box a senior staff SWE is differentiated from a senior SWE by mentoring others, and in so doing, has a greater impac

by delish 7y ago

I read the article once and thought, "So at Box a senior staff SWE is differentiated from a senior SWE by mentoring others, and in so doing, has a greater impact. And senior staff is still in the technical track, not the management track. What does the author (or, What do HN commentators) think are the differences between mentoring and managing? Other than the obvious of course." I read it again--I liked the article--and saw that the article talks about too many kinds of staff-level contributions, including kinds of mentorship, for my question to be relevant. I'm still interested enough to pose: I had thought elevation of the technical track to "equal" the management track was a response to technical employees "needing" to go-into-management-and-deal-with-people in order to advance their careers. So now it would seem to me that the technical track is absorbing some of the functions of the management track. That's assuming that mentoring is related to managing.

itronitron 7y ago
All of these level requirements are tacked on by the HR department because they are required for advancement in non-technical roles. Unfortunately they really foul up personal dynamics as some people believe they need to 'mentor' their colleagues in order to fulfill the responsibilities of their job title... how fucking condescending is that?
- mplanchard 7y ago
  This seems like a really uncharitable view of mentorship. I have never felt condescended to when I was being mentored by someone with more skills or experience in any of my jobs, and I certainly hope that the people I help through one on ones, code review, and pairing now don’t feel as though there’s any condescension in it. I think mostly, we all just want to become as good as we can be at our jobs.
  - itronitron 7y ago
    If everyone wants to become as good as they can at their jobs then why call out mentoring as a special activity? People should already be helping their colleagues perform better at their jobs without incentivizing it as a checkbox for career advancement.
    - sweeneyrod 7y ago
      > If everyone wants to become as good as they can at their jobs then why call out mentoring as a special activity? Because plenty of people won't do it naturally; teaching people things isn't always fun (or alternatively is less fun than coding).
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      This sounds like an argument against rubrics or ladder requirements in general, not a particular problem with mentorship as a requirement. If you want employees to mentor others, call it out as a thing to encourage. If you don't do that, people will be less inclined to do it, instead focusing on raw technical impact or whatever. Why call out writing good code as a requirement for advancement if everyone should do it anyway? Well, not everyone values the same things. Making values explicit isn't bad.
leetrout 7y ago
“We expect each person promoted to Senior SWE to have largely demonstrated competence in all areas (in our case, Technical Skills, Leadership, and Culture and Values) and to have met the bar in all areas, making the required skill set of all Senior SWEs fairly similar.” The leadership and culture markers are _wildly_ subjective. I’m willing to bet managers are still paid more and still carry more favoritism and power and climbing the tech track ranks is very difficult.
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
Mentoring is providing technical guidance, the same as writing code and design documents. It's just a little more personal than other kinds of guidance. Managing includes things like: * Interminable day-long budget meetings. * Fighting with the recruiting department and other teams to get new hires. * Mediating personnel issues, such as "I'm not considered senior and I think I should be" or "We're at loggerheads and can't reach consensus on this decision". There's of course some wiggle room here, and a lot of people at the first leadership rung do end up with a kind of hybrid role. But by the next level up, management track people are generally spending 100% of their time on these kinds of things.
adimitrov 7y ago
I'd say my vision of an ideal technical career parallels an ideal academic career: the Juniors learn, grads do grunt work (but sometimes that's the most interesting stuff), post-docs do their own projects and lead small teams, and finally, professors get to pass on their knowledge all while contributing their valuable expertise to many different projects of their grads and post-docs. In this scenario, the difference between a post-doc and a professor is the difference between a senior SWE and a senior staff SWE. The sad reality of both tracks, however, is that admin work eats your creative time more and more as you progress along your career path.

by delish 7y ago

itronitron 7y ago

All of these level requirements are tacked on by the HR department because they are required for advancement in non-technical roles. Unfortunately they really foul up personal dynamics as some people believe they need to 'mentor' their colleagues in order to fulfill the responsibilities of their job title... how fucking condescending is that?

mplanchard 7y ago
This seems like a really uncharitable view of mentorship. I have never felt condescended to when I was being mentored by someone with more skills or experience in any of my jobs, and I certainly hope that the people I help through one on ones, code review, and pairing now don’t feel as though there’s any condescension in it. I think mostly, we all just want to become as good as we can be at our jobs.
- itronitron 7y ago
  If everyone wants to become as good as they can at their jobs then why call out mentoring as a special activity? People should already be helping their colleagues perform better at their jobs without incentivizing it as a checkbox for career advancement.
  - sweeneyrod 7y ago
    > If everyone wants to become as good as they can at their jobs then why call out mentoring as a special activity? Because plenty of people won't do it naturally; teaching people things isn't always fun (or alternatively is less fun than coding).
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    This sounds like an argument against rubrics or ladder requirements in general, not a particular problem with mentorship as a requirement. If you want employees to mentor others, call it out as a thing to encourage. If you don't do that, people will be less inclined to do it, instead focusing on raw technical impact or whatever. Why call out writing good code as a requirement for advancement if everyone should do it anyway? Well, not everyone values the same things. Making values explicit isn't bad.

leetrout 7y ago

“We expect each person promoted to Senior SWE to have largely demonstrated competence in all areas (in our case, Technical Skills, Leadership, and Culture and Values) and to have met the bar in all areas, making the required skill set of all Senior SWEs fairly similar.” The leadership and culture markers are _wildly_ subjective. I’m willing to bet managers are still paid more and still carry more favoritism and power and climbing the tech track ranks is very difficult.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

Mentoring is providing technical guidance, the same as writing code and design documents. It's just a little more personal than other kinds of guidance. Managing includes things like: * Interminable day-long budget meetings. * Fighting with the recruiting department and other teams to get new hires. * Mediating personnel issues, such as "I'm not considered senior and I think I should be" or "We're at loggerheads and can't reach consensus on this decision". There's of course some wiggle room here, and a lot of people at the first leadership rung do end up with a kind of hybrid role. But by the next level up, management track people are generally spending 100% of their time on these kinds of things.

adimitrov 7y ago

I'd say my vision of an ideal technical career parallels an ideal academic career: the Juniors learn, grads do grunt work (but sometimes that's the most interesting stuff), post-docs do their own projects and lead small teams, and finally, professors get to pass on their knowledge all while contributing their valuable expertise to many different projects of their grads and post-docs. In this scenario, the difference between a post-doc and a professor is the difference between a senior SWE and a senior staff SWE. The sad reality of both tracks, however, is that admin work eats your creative time more and more as you progress along your career path.