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And it seems to lump tech lead, staff-level individual contributor not leading a team, and architect-level positions that have no direct reports. When I speak

And it seems to lump tech lead, staff-level individual contributor not leading a team, and architect-level positions that have no direct reports. When I speak about career options to people I lead, I say there is a senior level plateau. At that point, you have to be more intentional about growth. If you want to stay in the field, and you want to progress past senior developer (staying a core contributor is an option!), you need to think about where you are going. You can be a generalist, specialist, or outside of development. Going into management is changing careers, much like going into product development or farming. If you want to be a generalist, you are looking to expand your influence as you tackle harder and harder problems. Tech leads are generalists. Architects are generalists. All of them have some form of technical leadership to help steer larger and larger efforts. You can also become a generalist that specializes in early startups: you are there to tackle any problem that is in front of the organization until it outgrows the need - at that point you can look for new pastures or help guide the organization while solving smaller and smaller problems. You can also become a specialist. You learn, in depth, a smaller set of responsibilities, but you can build what others cannot. You can debug and solve problems others cannot. You can be a consultant, or a specialized shared service within an organization. You have options, but mastery is what motivates you, and that mastery can be very valuable in certain situations. But that is career growth, not planning for the end of your career. Sometimes, that is a parallel track, like management or product. Sometimes, that's retirement. Sometimes, that's moving into another industry. I think that's what the article is talking about instead.

asdfman123 5y ago
Staying a productive IC your whole career is fairly straightforward: I really think it comes down to never "coasting" and always being open to learning new things. The problem is a lot of older people seem to believe that once they get to a certain point, they're entitled a position and respect. Is it a wonder why younger people, who might be more up-to-date than them, don't want to work with them? The trick is to never get that kind of "old" and remain a lifelong learner.
- deweywsu 5y ago
- nefitty 5y ago
  It seems like some people fall into this trap if they manage to get into FAANG. I would be scared of that happening to me. It's like, your entire view of the industry was built around hitting the winner's podium, and once you've achieved that, where do you go? There's only so many gold medals to go around on the podium itself, anyways.
  - asdfman123 5y ago
    Depends on why you do it and what you do there. I'm at FAANG and still learning plenty. I'm not here to hit an arbitrary goal but because I have to have a job and it pays well, so might as well turbocharge my savings. But yes, you should always respect the journey. It never stops: keep participating in it, and keep your eyes open.
    - nefitty 5y ago
      That's good to know! The challenges you find must be myriad. It does sound fun.
  - groby_b 5y ago
    I'd overall suggest stepping away from the idea that growth is so one-dimensional that you can "win" at it. But even if it were, there's plenty of room within them to grow, and just getting in is far from "you've achieved it all" If we stay with that idea for a second: FAANG companies have tens of thousands of engineers. Getting there isn't a "gold medal". You're barely in the stadium. If you made it to Principal Engineer, congrats, you've gotten through the qualifying rounds. Still plenty of room to strive. There are plenty of valid reasons for why you choose or don't choose FAANG. But "Where would I go once I've achieved that" really shouldn't hold you back.
    - nefitty 5y ago
chrisweekly 5y ago
My advice is keep pursuing whatever energizes you, and aim towards being "T-shaped", not "jack of all trades, master of none", rather "jack of many trades, master of 2 maybe 3".
- lytefm 5y ago
  I'd rather call it pi-shaped or N-shaped then ;)
  - chrisweekly 5y ago
    Yeah, pi-shaped is a definite improvement -- at least when written. When spoken, it might be heard as "pie-shaped", which would be confusing ;)
  - wlonkly 5y ago
    I've heard people call it "comb-shaped" before.
    - chrisweekly 5y ago
      Thanks, yeah, that works and I think I'll adopt it. :)
GCA10 5y ago
For those of us who are semi-good at all three paths, our long-haul choices depend quite heavily on how the wider world either opens unexpected opportunities for us, or gradually chokes them off. In my own (non-technical) case, I had a great 15-year run as a top-of-the-heap IC -- and then my outfit got bought by people whose business model had no use for what I did. Time to do something different, and with it being 2008, going independent felt a whole lot smarter than trying to find a new star-IC role in a scared industry. Going independent was good for 7-8 years, but then my favorite partners at my favorite clients all got to the end of their roads. New faces; new visions, and the unappealing prospect of spending 3-4 years trying to revive a shrunken pool of business into something better. A star-IC role opened up somewhere else, and it's been a great ride ever since. It's the career equivalent of summers in Alaska; winters in the Caribbean. Sometimes the key to staying warm and happy is to be willing to move when the temperature changes.
- SaltyBackendGuy 5y ago
  > Sometimes the key to staying warm and happy is to be willing to move when the temperature changes. Thank you for this. It really landed close to home for me.
chefandy 5y ago
Staying a core contributor isn't always an option. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/22/opinion/ibm-e-mails-about-making-dinobabies-extinct-confirm-what-older-workers-already-know/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/22/opinion/ibm-e-mails-a... While it's not true everywhere, age bias— even unintentional— means you've got to be pretty freaking indispensable no matter what our constantly changing tech landscape throws our way. We're not talking about the proverbial behoodied-27-year-old-led startup, here... this is IBM.

asdfman123 5y ago

Staying a productive IC your whole career is fairly straightforward: I really think it comes down to never "coasting" and always being open to learning new things. The problem is a lot of older people seem to believe that once they get to a certain point, they're entitled a position and respect. Is it a wonder why younger people, who might be more up-to-date than them, don't want to work with them? The trick is to never get that kind of "old" and remain a lifelong learner.

deweywsu 5y ago
nefitty 5y ago
It seems like some people fall into this trap if they manage to get into FAANG. I would be scared of that happening to me. It's like, your entire view of the industry was built around hitting the winner's podium, and once you've achieved that, where do you go? There's only so many gold medals to go around on the podium itself, anyways.
- asdfman123 5y ago
  Depends on why you do it and what you do there. I'm at FAANG and still learning plenty. I'm not here to hit an arbitrary goal but because I have to have a job and it pays well, so might as well turbocharge my savings. But yes, you should always respect the journey. It never stops: keep participating in it, and keep your eyes open.
  - nefitty 5y ago
    That's good to know! The challenges you find must be myriad. It does sound fun.
- groby_b 5y ago
  I'd overall suggest stepping away from the idea that growth is so one-dimensional that you can "win" at it. But even if it were, there's plenty of room within them to grow, and just getting in is far from "you've achieved it all" If we stay with that idea for a second: FAANG companies have tens of thousands of engineers. Getting there isn't a "gold medal". You're barely in the stadium. If you made it to Principal Engineer, congrats, you've gotten through the qualifying rounds. Still plenty of room to strive. There are plenty of valid reasons for why you choose or don't choose FAANG. But "Where would I go once I've achieved that" really shouldn't hold you back.
  - nefitty 5y ago

chrisweekly 5y ago

My advice is keep pursuing whatever energizes you, and aim towards being "T-shaped", not "jack of all trades, master of none", rather "jack of many trades, master of 2 maybe 3".

lytefm 5y ago
I'd rather call it pi-shaped or N-shaped then ;)
- chrisweekly 5y ago
  Yeah, pi-shaped is a definite improvement -- at least when written. When spoken, it might be heard as "pie-shaped", which would be confusing ;)
- wlonkly 5y ago
  I've heard people call it "comb-shaped" before.
  - chrisweekly 5y ago
    Thanks, yeah, that works and I think I'll adopt it. :)

GCA10 5y ago

For those of us who are semi-good at all three paths, our long-haul choices depend quite heavily on how the wider world either opens unexpected opportunities for us, or gradually chokes them off. In my own (non-technical) case, I had a great 15-year run as a top-of-the-heap IC -- and then my outfit got bought by people whose business model had no use for what I did. Time to do something different, and with it being 2008, going independent felt a whole lot smarter than trying to find a new star-IC role in a scared industry. Going independent was good for 7-8 years, but then my favorite partners at my favorite clients all got to the end of their roads. New faces; new visions, and the unappealing prospect of spending 3-4 years trying to revive a shrunken pool of business into something better. A star-IC role opened up somewhere else, and it's been a great ride ever since. It's the career equivalent of summers in Alaska; winters in the Caribbean. Sometimes the key to staying warm and happy is to be willing to move when the temperature changes.

SaltyBackendGuy 5y ago
> Sometimes the key to staying warm and happy is to be willing to move when the temperature changes. Thank you for this. It really landed close to home for me.

chefandy 5y ago

Staying a core contributor isn't always an option. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/22/opinion/ibm-e-mails-about-making-dinobabies-extinct-confirm-what-older-workers-already-know/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/22/opinion/ibm-e-mails-a... While it's not true everywhere, age bias— even unintentional— means you've got to be pretty freaking indispensable no matter what our constantly changing tech landscape throws our way. We're not talking about the proverbial behoodied-27-year-old-led startup, here... this is IBM.