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There’s nobody making you choose to stop being an IC. If you want (and you stay up-to-date with the latest trends) you can continue doing it indefinitely. You j
by irq11 7y ago
There’s nobody making you choose to stop being an IC. If you want (and you stay up-to-date with the latest trends) you can continue doing it indefinitely. You just can’t do that and also demand that you be paid the salary of someone who is leading a team.
You are paid to produce value. If you continue to focus on producing value as an individual, you have to reasonably expect that your compensation will eventually reach a limit.
- hawaiianbrah 7y agoMicrosoft pays employees based on level. My manager does make more than I do, but that’s because they’re a higher level, not because they’re a manager.
- irq11 7y agoYes, at perhaps five of the world’s most elite software companies, they have pay tiers that theoretically scale with experience. Setting aside the fact that most companies don’t have this, here’s a protip: count the number of engineers at each tier. People don’t get automatically promoted to l7 just because they spent years grunting at l6. It scales with impact, and opportunities for impact as an IC are fewer and farther between than for managers.
- ganstyles 7y agoFacebook is the same. Transition to management, make the same pay per level. It's less about moving for money and more about moving to what skillset you prefer to use, which I really like.
- tehlike 7y agoIsh. There is a ceiling to an ic. Sr dr ic level(distinguished) is probably it, while an em can go up to svp level. Let's not kid ourselves, the ladders are never equal, and a senior ic level doesnt translate well to another company. After l7 and above, the skillset is only mostly recognized within the company.
- heisenbit 7y agoICs are architects and as such create rules about what is to be done and maybe more importantly what must not be done. While it is often said product follows organization there is also something to be said about organization following products - once the initial architecture is established in a new undertaking the team structure is usually aligned. Some ICs are not really architects but work on tiny scale on critical bits. There is often some fractal quality to their work and the tiny structures are reflected back into the organization. Some ICs have come up with patents - the foundation for building businesses with a profitable moat around them. Last but not least are ICs role models and can have a large impact on the development of other individuals. It is often not easy to find a way to impact the organization on a larger scale but it is possible. I think the I in IC is not helpful.
- redisman 7y agoHold on. I thought ICs are the people who build software? Constructing a building with just architects sounds hilarious.
- commandlinefan 7y ago> There’s nobody making you choose to stop being an IC There kind of is, though. If you’re lucky, once you hit mid-40, you’re with a company that will be able to keep you on/stay in business for the next 20 years until you retire, because job hunting as a middle-aged “IC”/non-managerial is… unpleasant. I’ve been involved in several hiring committees where (managerial) types would look at a resume and say, “this guy’s been doing this for twenty years and he’s still ‘just a programmer’? Ugh, next”.