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> no idea where you think all the talent was hiding until covid 19 The talent isn't being converted from potential - as was recently said, "You can't be what y

by gopalv 6y ago

> no idea where you think all the talent was hiding until covid 19 The talent isn't being converted from potential - as was recently said, "You can't be what you can't see". I was in Kansas City meeting people in Jan and it's pretty clear that there's a lot of talent hiding out there in downtown Missouri. The talent there tops out at SSE because there's no vertical space without jumping to management & two years down the folks know are "mid-west-nice" managers with an iron fist behind it. Several people who should've chased down the principal engineer roles have become these sorts of managers who never made it to directors because they're always been better devs than they were managers. And this seemed twice as bad for the young uns to have a dev-heavy manager squash a few of their attempts to actually own decisions, instead of just proposing them & see that role as a way to get that ability. Most folks though things would be different if they had moved to SFBA, but all of them hit this point when they already had kids in school with stable single-income households (house all paid for). In fact, I'd be one of those people in Bangalore if I had a bit more skills as a manager (completely sucking at management is a good way to be forced to chase the dev side). If they could hired as a principal dev via remote out of being promising senior se, then this process would actually convert a lot of the talent into actual productivity in the industry.

ip26 6y ago
To clarify, you're saying that limited career growth opportunity at satellite sites is stunting the talent development at that locale?
- gopalv 6y ago
  Not satellite offices, I was specifically talking about employers who are entirely local. Yes, the strong incentive is to stay put, stick to the local employer as long as you can and still get a role that pays more money. The skills you get from sticking around just make it harder to shift as well sometimes. The output gets equated to talent - "built my sixteenth monolith .NET CRUD web app" is not as well respected as it should be. For example, there's folks in Portland who are looking at the Nike CEO situation with great trepidation - talented people who would do very well in a new job, assuming they don't need to move.
chris11 6y ago
> The talent there tops out at SSE That was my experience at an F500 in the midwest. I wasn't a senior engineer but I was doing the same type of work as the seniors on my team. And I felt like my role could have more ownership. They did have team leads, a few architects, and agile related roles. But there wasn't much else for devs who didn't want to be managers. My current company in the bay area is a lot better. I feel like I have more ownership, and the IC roles are more granular. I think technically senior can be terminal, and staff/principal roles here require influencing other teams. But my company has thought about promoting ICs, and I clearly see how staff/principals have a more challenging job.

by gopalv 6y ago

ip26 6y ago

To clarify, you're saying that limited career growth opportunity at satellite sites is stunting the talent development at that locale?

gopalv 6y ago
Not satellite offices, I was specifically talking about employers who are entirely local. Yes, the strong incentive is to stay put, stick to the local employer as long as you can and still get a role that pays more money. The skills you get from sticking around just make it harder to shift as well sometimes. The output gets equated to talent - "built my sixteenth monolith .NET CRUD web app" is not as well respected as it should be. For example, there's folks in Portland who are looking at the Nike CEO situation with great trepidation - talented people who would do very well in a new job, assuming they don't need to move.

chris11 6y ago

> The talent there tops out at SSE That was my experience at an F500 in the midwest. I wasn't a senior engineer but I was doing the same type of work as the seniors on my team. And I felt like my role could have more ownership. They did have team leads, a few architects, and agile related roles. But there wasn't much else for devs who didn't want to be managers. My current company in the bay area is a lot better. I feel like I have more ownership, and the IC roles are more granular. I think technically senior can be terminal, and staff/principal roles here require influencing other teams. But my company has thought about promoting ICs, and I clearly see how staff/principals have a more challenging job.