4 ms·
I've been an IC at a company providing IC services to small companies in the buildings next to FAANG HQs. I've worked as an IC designer, have been involved in a
by jotm 4y ago
I've been an IC at a company providing IC services to small companies in the buildings next to FAANG HQs. I've worked as an IC designer, have been involved in a lot of IC (obviously) and I also have several years of experience in IC. So clearly, ic wot ppl mean when they type IC.
As an IC on various forums for over a decade, I've only started commonly seeing this abbreviation in the past 2 years.
Just don't.
- cmrdporcupine 4y agoIt's an amusing term for sure and definitely an outcropping of the internals at FAANG (or maybe MS as well) culture. Like, it almost sounds denigrating. "I was just an individual contributor"; like, the people who do the real work, y'know, they're out there doing the difficult work of herding cats to tell them which protobufs to move from A to B, while the ICs are, y'know just ICing doing the actual protobuf shuffling :-) It's just about promo culture @ Google, etc. and not in fact I think a reasonable principle of how good software gets built.
- aix1 4y agoAt Google specifically, the term simply refers to someone who does not have formal people management responsibilities. (For example, if I were a tech lead on a major project but did not have any reports, I'd refer to myself as an IC.) Also, there's no stigma: it's a completely neutral term.