4 ms·

"it's the people managers making strategic technical decisions" I'm 54 and I'm pleased to say that I've never worked anywhere where that was the general rule -

• ryandrake 7y ago
  As CTO, did you have direct reports? If so, you were a people manager and: > "it's the people managers making strategic technical decisions" ...was true in your case. In my experience (over 2 decades now, wow I can’t believe it) the people making the broad, strategic decisions and influencing outside of their orgs all happen to also have direct reports and usually those reports are people managers too. They have titles like “director” and “VP” and “CTO”. How many of those people have you seen who are individual contributors?
  • bluGill 7y ago
    The obvious influence belongs to the managers at all levels. ICs have less obvious roles, but good managers look to their ICs for guidance on what decisions to make. Thus there is a lot of indirect authority in the roles that seem to have no power - for the IC that learns to use it.
• jrochkind1 7y ago
  I'm jealous. I don't think your experience is typical.