4 ms·

Folks generally get bombarded to manager because there’s no career ladder That's a pretty serious organizational flaw. At my employer, we have a well-define a

Folks generally get bombarded to manager because there’s no career ladder That's a pretty serious organizational flaw. At my employer, we have a well-define architect path that ends with "Technical Fellow" which on the job matrix is parallel with director-level management. As a developer, I see 4 basic career tracks. Developer-track - caps out at principal developer, thought most people in this role are capable of architectural work within their product/tech-stack. Architect-track - high-level strategic technical decision making, caps out at Technical Fellow. Business-track - eventual move into a BA or Product Management role. Management-track - typically moves in scrum master or project management role, then into full-time personal management. I started down the architect track, then hopped over to management because I wanted to challenge myself (at the time, leading people was WAY WAY WAY outside my comfort zone), not because I was forced into it due to lack of career growth.

ghaff 6y ago
>That's a pretty serious organizational flaw. I agree that "no career ladder" is a serious flaw. That said, it's not uncommon that, in terms of money anyway, IC tracks tend to cap out at lower levels than management tracks even if there is a well-defined IC track.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  Yup. And it's not limited to software/tech. The local police department has the same problem with patrol/beat officers - many of the good ones were promoting into desk jobs because their salaries capped out. IIRC, they ended up creating a new tier of patrol roles on top that corresponded, income-wise, with the first or second level management.
- ska 6y ago
  > t's not uncommon that, in terms of money anyway, IC tracks tend to cap out at lower levels than management This is pretty natural, at least in a big organization. At some point your IC tracks almost always have less impact. There are weird corner cases sure, but not enough that you can't deal with individually. But that's ok; Almost every manager isn't going to eventually be C-level either. What's important is that there is some career track that makes sense for IC focused technical people to stay in throughout a normal career.
  - alistairSH 6y ago
    There are weird corner cases sure, but not enough that you can't deal with individually. I think that's where a lot of organizations fail. Take the "Technical Fellow" I mentioned earlier. This is the "weird corner case" - a technical IC who is capable of contributing strategically but has no interest in management. The people in this role generally have ~20 years in industry and most have advanced degrees. They're some of the smartest people I know. They have the people skills to manage, but little interest (or rather, prefer to stay purely technical). Without the technical fellow role, they would have likely moved into management after 10-15 years and moved into director positions, at a loss to the company. Or, they'd dead end as senior devs at a lower salary and not have a voice with senior management. My employer has 3500 employees (across all BUs). There are fewer than 10 technical fellows.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      That doesn't seem an unreasonable ratio. I was at an analyst meeting at IBM Research many years ago and one factoid I still remember is that IBM at the time had more general managers (i.e. a rather senior management position) than fellows; I think there were about 300 of the latter.

ghaff 6y ago

>That's a pretty serious organizational flaw. I agree that "no career ladder" is a serious flaw. That said, it's not uncommon that, in terms of money anyway, IC tracks tend to cap out at lower levels than management tracks even if there is a well-defined IC track.

alistairSH 6y ago
Yup. And it's not limited to software/tech. The local police department has the same problem with patrol/beat officers - many of the good ones were promoting into desk jobs because their salaries capped out. IIRC, they ended up creating a new tier of patrol roles on top that corresponded, income-wise, with the first or second level management.
ska 6y ago
> t's not uncommon that, in terms of money anyway, IC tracks tend to cap out at lower levels than management This is pretty natural, at least in a big organization. At some point your IC tracks almost always have less impact. There are weird corner cases sure, but not enough that you can't deal with individually. But that's ok; Almost every manager isn't going to eventually be C-level either. What's important is that there is some career track that makes sense for IC focused technical people to stay in throughout a normal career.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  There are weird corner cases sure, but not enough that you can't deal with individually. I think that's where a lot of organizations fail. Take the "Technical Fellow" I mentioned earlier. This is the "weird corner case" - a technical IC who is capable of contributing strategically but has no interest in management. The people in this role generally have ~20 years in industry and most have advanced degrees. They're some of the smartest people I know. They have the people skills to manage, but little interest (or rather, prefer to stay purely technical). Without the technical fellow role, they would have likely moved into management after 10-15 years and moved into director positions, at a loss to the company. Or, they'd dead end as senior devs at a lower salary and not have a voice with senior management. My employer has 3500 employees (across all BUs). There are fewer than 10 technical fellows.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    That doesn't seem an unreasonable ratio. I was at an analyst meeting at IBM Research many years ago and one factoid I still remember is that IBM at the time had more general managers (i.e. a rather senior management position) than fellows; I think there were about 300 of the latter.