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> how do you avoid being assigned this role and remain a valued engineer once you have experience? Change company. If the only progression for an engineer is

by buro9 6y ago

> how do you avoid being assigned this role and remain a valued engineer once you have experience? Change company. If the only progression for an engineer is to become a manager, change company to one that allows an engineer to continue growing, continue learning, and continue to earn more. Some signs a company will force you to become a manager to progress: 1. Artificial ceilings: "We have Principal and Staff Engineers, but those are defined as having had impact outside the company so you cannot become one as your work only has impact internally" - effectively these titles are only offered to strategic hires and it's not attainable from inside the company 2. Managers paid more than the top engineers. 3. Title inflation as this stifles actual growth and learning and tends to limit overall earnings forcing you to look to change your career to find new challenges and earnings even though you want to be an IC and continue to do engineering. Unless a company truly has a clear progression for ICs with learning, growth and earnings all factored in, and that the IC progression goes all the way to near the top of the company, and it's achievable within the company... then you're going to reach the point that you'll look at the manager career and think it's the only way forward. It isn't, and it's not even forward it's to the side and backwards a bit (you reset your career and start at the lowest level of a new track). If you can't progress as an engineer and wish to... change company.

nojito 6y ago
Managers should get paid more than engineers.
- buro9 6y ago
  I am a manager, and I disagree. The ranges overlap: an early career engineer will definitely be paid less than an early career manager... but a top engineer should be able to earn more than the vast majority (if not all) of the managers.
  - nojito 6y ago
    Not true. The idea that an IC is going to out contribute a top manager who oversees dozens of lower tier ICs doesn't make a whole lot of sense. A good manager is a productivity multiplier which is why the top companies spend an arm and leg training up their managers. The real issue is that is much easier to manage a group of top engineers than it is to manage a group of engineers who think that they are top engineers.
    - ratww 6y ago
      Good individual contributors are also productivity multipliers. There's nothing specific about managers that makes this trait specific to them. Also, using salary to force engineers into becoming managers is a good recipe for losing good engineers. Either because they become managers or because they leave.
    - pracer 6y ago
      And this is the perfect example of why so many companies are doing it wrong. Managers that truly believe they are the ones pulling the weight and making projects possible (without any mention to technology and eng. knowledge) and if not, it is because the engineers are over their minds and you have to micromanage them. And because managers tend to be the ones proposing promotions or career upgrades, they reproduce this mindset by selection bias. The point mentioned in some comment above about changing company if you feel forced to move to management has been proved by this comment. If you see this behaviour in management, no matter if you want to continue your IC career or move to management, run. Find a better place.
robotmay 6y ago
This is basically what I did. I ended up trapped in a half-management-but-no-real-authority-but-also-we-need-you-as-an-engineer role. It's an easy place to accidentally find yourself when the managers above you aren't technical enough to manage engineers effectively. All my previous jobs were in smaller companies where this tends to be the norm. It has been incredibly freeing to work at GitLab where there is an engineering career path and no pressure to move into management. I don't think I'm a bad manager, but I don't enjoy it as much as engineering, and it's nice to just be able to do what I'm good at.

by buro9 6y ago

nojito 6y ago

Managers should get paid more than engineers.

buro9 6y ago
I am a manager, and I disagree. The ranges overlap: an early career engineer will definitely be paid less than an early career manager... but a top engineer should be able to earn more than the vast majority (if not all) of the managers.
- nojito 6y ago
  Not true. The idea that an IC is going to out contribute a top manager who oversees dozens of lower tier ICs doesn't make a whole lot of sense. A good manager is a productivity multiplier which is why the top companies spend an arm and leg training up their managers. The real issue is that is much easier to manage a group of top engineers than it is to manage a group of engineers who think that they are top engineers.
  - ratww 6y ago
    Good individual contributors are also productivity multipliers. There's nothing specific about managers that makes this trait specific to them. Also, using salary to force engineers into becoming managers is a good recipe for losing good engineers. Either because they become managers or because they leave.
  - pracer 6y ago
    And this is the perfect example of why so many companies are doing it wrong. Managers that truly believe they are the ones pulling the weight and making projects possible (without any mention to technology and eng. knowledge) and if not, it is because the engineers are over their minds and you have to micromanage them. And because managers tend to be the ones proposing promotions or career upgrades, they reproduce this mindset by selection bias. The point mentioned in some comment above about changing company if you feel forced to move to management has been proved by this comment. If you see this behaviour in management, no matter if you want to continue your IC career or move to management, run. Find a better place.

robotmay 6y ago

This is basically what I did. I ended up trapped in a half-management-but-no-real-authority-but-also-we-need-you-as-an-engineer role. It's an easy place to accidentally find yourself when the managers above you aren't technical enough to manage engineers effectively. All my previous jobs were in smaller companies where this tends to be the norm. It has been incredibly freeing to work at GitLab where there is an engineering career path and no pressure to move into management. I don't think I'm a bad manager, but I don't enjoy it as much as engineering, and it's nice to just be able to do what I'm good at.