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In my head, "director" is right near the top of the organisation, just under "shareholder", and above C-suite. So I'm intrigued by the "ton of managing up". W

• cameronh90 6y ago
  In the UK at least, Director of X used to be more common than Chief X Officer, but they seem to be used roughly interchangeably. Similarly Managing Director was used more often than CEO. We seem to use a mix now but overall moving more toward US conventions.
• arcanus 6y ago
  At bigco, management track goes: Manager -> director - > VP - > C-level There are often levels in between, such as senior director or senior VP, but that is the rough hierarchy.
• jedberg 6y ago
  Generally a Director reports to a VP. Sometimes you'll have Senior Director in between. Director is also the word for someone on the board of directors, do it's confusing.
• hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  To clarify some of the other responses, there is confusion between someone on the Board of Directors (often called a Director of the Company) vs. an Engineering Director. In most medium-to-large software orgs, the manager tract goes something like Manager->Senior Manager->Director->Senior Director->VP->Senior VP->CTO. Obviously some of levels may not exist depending on the size of the organization, but in general a Director and above manages few ICs and instead manages managers.
• Spooky23 6y ago
  In a big old school company, a director is a manager of managers or lesser directors. You are usually a accountable for a chunk of the business. Sometimes you’re a power player, other times you’re the meat in a shit sandwich with the big shots above, and the worker bees below.