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Whatever you do, don't seek to join a management track because you think it's the "next logical step" or some reward for being good at coding. It's not that.

Whatever you do, don't seek to join a management track because you think it's the "next logical step" or some reward for being good at coding. It's not that. It's a different job. Gather some evidence about whether you're good at helping people solve their problems. All sorts of problems. Problems not even having to do with work. Ask whether you're good at communicating up and down, high level and low level. Do you enjoy answering dumb questions and explaining things over and over again? Are you good at switching between topics that you didn't want to switch to, hour by hour? Do you like writing reports and managing projects and Gantt charts? Are you "a people person, I'm good with people dammit"? Would you take the job if there were no pay increase? If the answer is no, then that's likely not what it's going to bring you -- it's probably going to bring you stress and dissatisfaction more than any potential pay difference. Of course, it may vary a bit by company, but this is often a reasonable caution. Think hard before just jumping in. Managing people isn't what many think it is!

cyxxon 6y ago
Right before Corona hit us all there was a chance for me to grab a new minor management position in my group at work, where it was decided that we should create official ~5 person teams with a leader out of the whole group. I applied but ultimately didn't get the job (my colleague who did get it was more qualified ultimately for this specific task). And boy was that a good thing... now that I see everything that he had to take on in addition to what he did before, or rather what he is doing instead of what he did before, I am so glad I do not have to do that. But I still worry that my (bigger) boss wants to push me in that direction as I now have to get certified in project/team lead management work, which will a. make it harder to avoid that kind of tasks in the future and b. makes me wonder how he sees the workforce and how he values people not doing that. In addition to that I feel that a lot of our IT projects, while they are often interesting to work on, tend to be dysfunctionally organized: they are almost always planned by calendar dates well in advance, then staffed, then the scope is decided on, then everybody scrambles to try to get it done in time. Writing that I might need to look for a new team Anybody hiring SAP Consultants / ABAP developers with 10+ years of experience interested in a CRM-to-S/4 migration? :D
- mprovost 6y ago
  It could be that your manager sees something in you that makes them think that you would be a successful manager yourself. Good managers can usually spot others with potential. And your frustration with how projects are run is often one way that people are tempted into management - you think you can do a better job! And sometimes you can, that's the best part.
  - cyxxon 6y ago
    It might well be that he sees something like that, but (at least here) the frustration would definitely increase, not decrease. In general I could imagine a job like that, I mean, I applied... but there is a trend in this company, it seems ;)
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > It could be that your manager sees something in you that makes them think that you would be a successful manager yourself. It could also be that his manager needs to check boxes on how many of his people are qualified in particular areas, whether those qualifications actually mean anything or not. Or that the more people he has working for him who he can say are "team leads" or something like it, the greater his own chances of moving up.
schoolornot 6y ago
What you've listed resonates with me yet 10 years in I just can't break into management. I'm a high performer and am compensated super well. I've been told by others to "shut up and do your job, your pay is fantastic" but there is an inner yearning to help others be the best they can be and also compound the skills of a group to accomplish greater business goals, many of which I'm suffering to complete now under the tremendous stresses that seem unfair for one person. This isn't the first time I've been in this or seen this situation play out. Businesses stacking an impossible list of responsibilities on one person until they burn out and leave, then get replaced by a manager and 2-3 others. So I ask, for those of you who have intentionally made the move, how did you do it? I feel like I can't be any more transparent with the business that it's the direction I'm looking for and that I will leave soon if it doesn't happen. But then what, do I keep playing this game into perpetuity until my luck changes?
- nicoburns 6y ago
  I applied for a job that was the position I wanted. I feel like you'd probably have more luck doing that than trying to convince a company who seems to be getting a lot of value out of you doing what you're doing.
  - mprovost 6y ago
    It's usually pretty difficult to get hired for a management role without any experience. Most of the time you break this dependency loop by being promoted internally first.
- watwut 6y ago
  That is because what he wrote is not most or actual managerial job. Yes, managers needs good social skills. But those are not defined as "be pleasant to all the people all the time". It is more of "be able to negotiate and push for what you want when you wont be punished for it". Accomplishing more and more wont get you there. Guessing right when to demand what you want and going for it, including leaving when current company is not cooperating, is what gets you there. Even as real manager of multiple people, others will try to stack more and more on your team. And you have to negotiate and push back - but not when the person you are pushing back would retaliate. Make following exercise: how many managers you know are actually spending much time with "helping people solve their problems" or "patiently answering dumb questions"? Managers I know spend some time with it, but frankly, much less then analysts and not much more developers. Another exercise: Do you know managers that are unpleasant around, arrogant or misinterpreting people? Do you know managers who are actually not good at all at communicating down chain? Because I know a lot. what the exercises show is that none of that pleasant communicating to all has to do with who is actually successful as manager or selected for management.
levosmetalo 6y ago
While all that may be true, it's also true that in many companies once you become a manager you are empowered to take actual technical decision. It's the manager that chose technology, high-level architecture, development methodology, project management technology, evaluate feature vs quality, ... and most important, actually protect him and his team from the constant bullshit coming down and sideways.
asplake 6y ago
Completely agree. The first time I tried it was a disaster - hated what I was doing and missed what I did before. A second attempt a few years later when I was ready and I thrived.
- mrjaeger 6y ago
  Would you mind elaborating more on what changed from the first to second time? Did the situation change? Did your perspective/goals/motivation change? I'm currently in my first stint in management and really disliking it, and wondering if/when it might make sense to give it a shot again.
watwut 6y ago
> Gather some evidence about whether you're good at helping people solve their problems. I mean following 100%: that is not what managers do. That is feel good theory of ... something. But, it is not what managerial work entails. Managers also dont explain dumb questions all that much nor explain things over and over again.
- civilized 6y ago
  In my experience, what managers do is - shoot the shit with us in endless meetings - present regular progress update slide decks that no one cares about - periodically get together to determine the comp of people who actually work
  - pc86 6y ago
    This is just the same ridiculous, overly cynical nonsense people have been saying for decades regurgitated. - Good relationships are a requirement for a good manager. - You may not care about them but executives do, and the manager is judged on their quality. - If you don't think managerial work is work you must have truly had some terrible managers.
    - civilized 6y ago
      Congrats on having a different opinion/experience, but I don't think yours is any more valid or any less "ridiculous/nonsense" than mine. It's my experience and if you think you know better than me what the real value of managers is in my world, I think that's arrogant and a bit delusional, honestly.
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        > It's my experience and if you think you know better than me what the real value of managers is in my world Your inability to judge of the value of a manager, even a bad manager, doesn't make someone else delusional. Reductively, if it were really the case that no one cared about the slide decks your managers were presenting, they'd be told to stop and do other things instead. So clearly someone does. That someone obviously isn't you, but that doesn't really matter if someone else gains enough value from that communication.
cdavid 6y ago
> Whatever you do, don't seek to join a management track because you think it's the "next logical step" or some reward for being good at coding. It's not that. It's a different job. It is certainly a different job, but the reality of today's corporations is that outside of a few niches, it certainly is the the next logical step. It is also easier to move down to IC than the opposite (by changing jobs), and getting back in management if you have a good resume. Yes, some companies have technical tracks where you can grow your career well, but the reality is those are few, and moreover, even when you have them, growing in technical track is actually much harder than the management track. And technical track involves a lot of meetings/discussions as well. E.g. there was recently a post on HN about principal engineer, and their job overlaps with what I do as EM quite a bit. I have met many engineers who are around 50 years old, did not want to go into management, and they are fairly miserable. If you're a kernel hacker, sure, you will likely be able to get paid working on enjoying it until you retire. But otherwise... It ends up being consulting, 'architects', and other jobs that are not that much more challenging technically speaking than engineering management. They get paid much less, and have fewer opportunities. Also, honestly, the whole thing about "management is a role, not a rank/title" feels like another trick by companies to low ball salaries.
- watwut 6y ago
  > It is also easier to move down to IC I don't know about that. Once you are at "non-technical" position, people assume you are non-technical when looking at CV and such. We had technical position open and this was super visible in one applicant. It might have played role that she was woman, but I think it would just milder with guy - but still present.
  - cdavid 6y ago
    So you're right about the CV assumption. But if you grow as an EM and beyond, it helps growing your network faster, and resume stop being as relevant. To be fair, it does help I am in an area (AI/ML) where even as a manager, you're assumed to have a certain technical level, fairly or not.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
Traubenfuchs 6y ago
> It's not that It IS that, money wise, in all the places where even the best employed developer does not even make close to 100k, e.g. all of Europe. Which is why a lot of managers in IT suck. They are previous developers that reached the developer salary ceiling. Then you can only become architect or some kind of manager.
- frede 6y ago
  Switzerland a notable exception.
- Jaruzel 6y ago
  Building on from that, a lot of large organisations have no progression for developers that isn't up the management ladder. I got sucked into this - realising I wanted more money, so got promoted into the management track (as that was the only route), and hated it. I soon quit the org and went freelance, where I could close the salary gap, yet still remain hands on technical.
  - bfdbfdb 6y ago
    How did you do that? I am in the same boat, got into tech lead position for more money. As a tech lead, I have 0 power and a lot more responsibilities. Hate it. I tried to go back to dev position but management kept blocking it. So I have been practicing leet code and hoping to go to one of FAANGs. But maybe freelancing is a better route for me. Only thing is that whenever I look up freelancing rates, they are quite low compared to my current average Texas SWE salary.
    - bradlys 6y ago
      I think a lot of these discussions are missing the locale that many people are living in. The amount of people who are contracting or freelancing and raking in FAANG money ($400k+) is likely a lot lower than people are being lead to believe. If you want FAANG money, just join FAANG.
      - 6y ago
PretzelFisch 6y ago
>"Would you take a job with no pay increase." Same statement can be made for every career step. If your pay did not change, would you do the work of E6 at an E3 wage? If I am moving to a position where I deliver more value to the company, then I should be paid accordingly. We need to move off this work for free trope.
- pc86 6y ago
  I think you're imagining a "work for free trope" (which exists, but definitely not for mid/senior/staff engineering levels) where there is not one. It's a thought exercise, and being overly pedantic about it is not helpful. The point is that if the only reason you have to move into EM is the bigger paycheck, you're most likely going to be happier sticking with your IC role and having the slightly smaller paycheck but enjoying work a lot more.
GartzenDeHaes 6y ago
One of my first development supervisor tasks was to talk to a developer about their body odor (there were complains from other staff). A few days later, after some super fun HR consultations, I had to send him home to shower -- and then repeat the same thing every few months.
- fatnoah 6y ago
  If it makes you feel any better, I've had the "please don't trim your toenails on your desk" discussion.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    I've had the "please turn off your zoom camera if you're going to floss your teeth on a call" discussion. (Was using his own zoom video preview like it was a mirror so everyone got a good close-up.)
    - jedberg 6y ago
      OMG I'm sorry but that made me laugh so hard. Who does that?!
    - mgkimsal 6y ago
      Pre-video call days, but... years ago, I had a phone interview with engineering manager. Had made it past initial screen, was ... interested in working there. Talking to the guy for a bit - I'm working on making all my points as best I can, trying to impress, then I hear "Noah, go talk to mommy - daddy's on the toilet!" I couldn't focus after that, and not sure he'd ever paid attention enough such that I had a shot anyway.
- coralranunculus 6y ago
  Similarly: One of my first issues to deal with was when one team member yelled at another team member's dog...spent a day trying to figure out what to do and in that day the yeller quit for unrelated reasons. Dodged that bullet I guess
mlboss 6y ago
Management is a different job but a job with more power, authority and information. Managers will decide the compensation of ICs not the other way around. They will be the first to know of major decisions that company is taking. As you grow experienced as an IC you want to say in the product roadmap. Usually that only happens at the management level.
- user5994461 6y ago
  Compensation is usually decided by HR, based on some pay bands in the company. The best you might be able to do as a manager is to try to nudge the candidate a bit to the higher end of the narrow band.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Actually I think most middle management has very little power or authority. Try firing a customer and see how far you get with that if you aren't running the company.

cyxxon 6y ago

Right before Corona hit us all there was a chance for me to grab a new minor management position in my group at work, where it was decided that we should create official ~5 person teams with a leader out of the whole group. I applied but ultimately didn't get the job (my colleague who did get it was more qualified ultimately for this specific task). And boy was that a good thing... now that I see everything that he had to take on in addition to what he did before, or rather what he is doing instead of what he did before, I am so glad I do not have to do that. But I still worry that my (bigger) boss wants to push me in that direction as I now have to get certified in project/team lead management work, which will a. make it harder to avoid that kind of tasks in the future and b. makes me wonder how he sees the workforce and how he values people not doing that. In addition to that I feel that a lot of our IT projects, while they are often interesting to work on, tend to be dysfunctionally organized: they are almost always planned by calendar dates well in advance, then staffed, then the scope is decided on, then everybody scrambles to try to get it done in time. Writing that I might need to look for a new team Anybody hiring SAP Consultants / ABAP developers with 10+ years of experience interested in a CRM-to-S/4 migration? :D

mprovost 6y ago
It could be that your manager sees something in you that makes them think that you would be a successful manager yourself. Good managers can usually spot others with potential. And your frustration with how projects are run is often one way that people are tempted into management - you think you can do a better job! And sometimes you can, that's the best part.
- cyxxon 6y ago
  It might well be that he sees something like that, but (at least here) the frustration would definitely increase, not decrease. In general I could imagine a job like that, I mean, I applied... but there is a trend in this company, it seems ;)
- pdonis 6y ago
  > It could be that your manager sees something in you that makes them think that you would be a successful manager yourself. It could also be that his manager needs to check boxes on how many of his people are qualified in particular areas, whether those qualifications actually mean anything or not. Or that the more people he has working for him who he can say are "team leads" or something like it, the greater his own chances of moving up.

schoolornot 6y ago

What you've listed resonates with me yet 10 years in I just can't break into management. I'm a high performer and am compensated super well. I've been told by others to "shut up and do your job, your pay is fantastic" but there is an inner yearning to help others be the best they can be and also compound the skills of a group to accomplish greater business goals, many of which I'm suffering to complete now under the tremendous stresses that seem unfair for one person. This isn't the first time I've been in this or seen this situation play out. Businesses stacking an impossible list of responsibilities on one person until they burn out and leave, then get replaced by a manager and 2-3 others. So I ask, for those of you who have intentionally made the move, how did you do it? I feel like I can't be any more transparent with the business that it's the direction I'm looking for and that I will leave soon if it doesn't happen. But then what, do I keep playing this game into perpetuity until my luck changes?

nicoburns 6y ago
I applied for a job that was the position I wanted. I feel like you'd probably have more luck doing that than trying to convince a company who seems to be getting a lot of value out of you doing what you're doing.
- mprovost 6y ago
  It's usually pretty difficult to get hired for a management role without any experience. Most of the time you break this dependency loop by being promoted internally first.
watwut 6y ago
That is because what he wrote is not most or actual managerial job. Yes, managers needs good social skills. But those are not defined as "be pleasant to all the people all the time". It is more of "be able to negotiate and push for what you want when you wont be punished for it". Accomplishing more and more wont get you there. Guessing right when to demand what you want and going for it, including leaving when current company is not cooperating, is what gets you there. Even as real manager of multiple people, others will try to stack more and more on your team. And you have to negotiate and push back - but not when the person you are pushing back would retaliate. Make following exercise: how many managers you know are actually spending much time with "helping people solve their problems" or "patiently answering dumb questions"? Managers I know spend some time with it, but frankly, much less then analysts and not much more developers. Another exercise: Do you know managers that are unpleasant around, arrogant or misinterpreting people? Do you know managers who are actually not good at all at communicating down chain? Because I know a lot. what the exercises show is that none of that pleasant communicating to all has to do with who is actually successful as manager or selected for management.

levosmetalo 6y ago

While all that may be true, it's also true that in many companies once you become a manager you are empowered to take actual technical decision. It's the manager that chose technology, high-level architecture, development methodology, project management technology, evaluate feature vs quality, ... and most important, actually protect him and his team from the constant bullshit coming down and sideways.

asplake 6y ago

Completely agree. The first time I tried it was a disaster - hated what I was doing and missed what I did before. A second attempt a few years later when I was ready and I thrived.

mrjaeger 6y ago
Would you mind elaborating more on what changed from the first to second time? Did the situation change? Did your perspective/goals/motivation change? I'm currently in my first stint in management and really disliking it, and wondering if/when it might make sense to give it a shot again.

watwut 6y ago

> Gather some evidence about whether you're good at helping people solve their problems. I mean following 100%: that is not what managers do. That is feel good theory of ... something. But, it is not what managerial work entails. Managers also dont explain dumb questions all that much nor explain things over and over again.

civilized 6y ago
In my experience, what managers do is - shoot the shit with us in endless meetings - present regular progress update slide decks that no one cares about - periodically get together to determine the comp of people who actually work
- pc86 6y ago
  This is just the same ridiculous, overly cynical nonsense people have been saying for decades regurgitated. - Good relationships are a requirement for a good manager. - You may not care about them but executives do, and the manager is judged on their quality. - If you don't think managerial work is work you must have truly had some terrible managers.
  - civilized 6y ago
    Congrats on having a different opinion/experience, but I don't think yours is any more valid or any less "ridiculous/nonsense" than mine. It's my experience and if you think you know better than me what the real value of managers is in my world, I think that's arrogant and a bit delusional, honestly.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      > It's my experience and if you think you know better than me what the real value of managers is in my world Your inability to judge of the value of a manager, even a bad manager, doesn't make someone else delusional. Reductively, if it were really the case that no one cared about the slide decks your managers were presenting, they'd be told to stop and do other things instead. So clearly someone does. That someone obviously isn't you, but that doesn't really matter if someone else gains enough value from that communication.

cdavid 6y ago

> Whatever you do, don't seek to join a management track because you think it's the "next logical step" or some reward for being good at coding. It's not that. It's a different job. It is certainly a different job, but the reality of today's corporations is that outside of a few niches, it certainly is the the next logical step. It is also easier to move down to IC than the opposite (by changing jobs), and getting back in management if you have a good resume. Yes, some companies have technical tracks where you can grow your career well, but the reality is those are few, and moreover, even when you have them, growing in technical track is actually much harder than the management track. And technical track involves a lot of meetings/discussions as well. E.g. there was recently a post on HN about principal engineer, and their job overlaps with what I do as EM quite a bit. I have met many engineers who are around 50 years old, did not want to go into management, and they are fairly miserable. If you're a kernel hacker, sure, you will likely be able to get paid working on enjoying it until you retire. But otherwise... It ends up being consulting, 'architects', and other jobs that are not that much more challenging technically speaking than engineering management. They get paid much less, and have fewer opportunities. Also, honestly, the whole thing about "management is a role, not a rank/title" feels like another trick by companies to low ball salaries.

watwut 6y ago
> It is also easier to move down to IC I don't know about that. Once you are at "non-technical" position, people assume you are non-technical when looking at CV and such. We had technical position open and this was super visible in one applicant. It might have played role that she was woman, but I think it would just milder with guy - but still present.
- cdavid 6y ago
  So you're right about the CV assumption. But if you grow as an EM and beyond, it helps growing your network faster, and resume stop being as relevant. To be fair, it does help I am in an area (AI/ML) where even as a manager, you're assumed to have a certain technical level, fairly or not.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago

Traubenfuchs 6y ago

> It's not that It IS that, money wise, in all the places where even the best employed developer does not even make close to 100k, e.g. all of Europe. Which is why a lot of managers in IT suck. They are previous developers that reached the developer salary ceiling. Then you can only become architect or some kind of manager.

frede 6y ago
Switzerland a notable exception.
Jaruzel 6y ago
Building on from that, a lot of large organisations have no progression for developers that isn't up the management ladder. I got sucked into this - realising I wanted more money, so got promoted into the management track (as that was the only route), and hated it. I soon quit the org and went freelance, where I could close the salary gap, yet still remain hands on technical.
- bfdbfdb 6y ago
  How did you do that? I am in the same boat, got into tech lead position for more money. As a tech lead, I have 0 power and a lot more responsibilities. Hate it. I tried to go back to dev position but management kept blocking it. So I have been practicing leet code and hoping to go to one of FAANGs. But maybe freelancing is a better route for me. Only thing is that whenever I look up freelancing rates, they are quite low compared to my current average Texas SWE salary.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    I think a lot of these discussions are missing the locale that many people are living in. The amount of people who are contracting or freelancing and raking in FAANG money ($400k+) is likely a lot lower than people are being lead to believe. If you want FAANG money, just join FAANG.
    - 6y ago

PretzelFisch 6y ago

>"Would you take a job with no pay increase." Same statement can be made for every career step. If your pay did not change, would you do the work of E6 at an E3 wage? If I am moving to a position where I deliver more value to the company, then I should be paid accordingly. We need to move off this work for free trope.

pc86 6y ago
I think you're imagining a "work for free trope" (which exists, but definitely not for mid/senior/staff engineering levels) where there is not one. It's a thought exercise, and being overly pedantic about it is not helpful. The point is that if the only reason you have to move into EM is the bigger paycheck, you're most likely going to be happier sticking with your IC role and having the slightly smaller paycheck but enjoying work a lot more.

GartzenDeHaes 6y ago

One of my first development supervisor tasks was to talk to a developer about their body odor (there were complains from other staff). A few days later, after some super fun HR consultations, I had to send him home to shower -- and then repeat the same thing every few months.

fatnoah 6y ago
If it makes you feel any better, I've had the "please don't trim your toenails on your desk" discussion.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  I've had the "please turn off your zoom camera if you're going to floss your teeth on a call" discussion. (Was using his own zoom video preview like it was a mirror so everyone got a good close-up.)
  - jedberg 6y ago
    OMG I'm sorry but that made me laugh so hard. Who does that?!
  - mgkimsal 6y ago
    Pre-video call days, but... years ago, I had a phone interview with engineering manager. Had made it past initial screen, was ... interested in working there. Talking to the guy for a bit - I'm working on making all my points as best I can, trying to impress, then I hear "Noah, go talk to mommy - daddy's on the toilet!" I couldn't focus after that, and not sure he'd ever paid attention enough such that I had a shot anyway.
coralranunculus 6y ago
Similarly: One of my first issues to deal with was when one team member yelled at another team member's dog...spent a day trying to figure out what to do and in that day the yeller quit for unrelated reasons. Dodged that bullet I guess

mlboss 6y ago

Management is a different job but a job with more power, authority and information. Managers will decide the compensation of ICs not the other way around. They will be the first to know of major decisions that company is taking. As you grow experienced as an IC you want to say in the product roadmap. Usually that only happens at the management level.

user5994461 6y ago
Compensation is usually decided by HR, based on some pay bands in the company. The best you might be able to do as a manager is to try to nudge the candidate a bit to the higher end of the narrow band.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
Actually I think most middle management has very little power or authority. Try firing a customer and see how far you get with that if you aren't running the company.