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> In hiring any software engineer, the organization needs me to have a 1/10th chance of hiring a future manager, 1/50th chance of future Director, 1/1000th chan

> In hiring any software engineer, the organization needs me to have a 1/10th chance of hiring a future manager, 1/50th chance of future Director, 1/1000th chance of hiring a future VP, and 1 in 25,000th chance of hiring a future CEO of the company. A job hopper is unlikely to become anything but an IC Strong disagree with this sentiment. I think you (or your company) are alone in the expectation or hope that an IC candidate would have even the remotest chance of rising to director or above. Every engineering manager I've ever known, when they hire for an IC role they're looking for an awesome IC and that's it. Their hope is that the IC will have the chops, scope, and leadership to build awesome systems/products and grow up the technical ladder.

jtokoph 4y ago
At many companies now, the requirement to be promoted from Manager to Senior Manager is having X number of managers under you. This is frequently done by splitting the responsibilities of your current team into multiple teams. A great way to accelerate that is to have one of your ICs with context and rapport transition into managing one of the sub teams.
- lgleason 4y ago
  This is what ends up killing companies. Too many levels of management which causes massive inefficiency.
  - to11mtm 4y ago
    Yep. There's also the slightly more twisted version of this, where companies have special 'leadership' training programs and the employees on teams get 'hand picked' by their managers or the org. It tends to lead to lead to knock-on effects like managers selecting for sycophants in hiring, the program being used as an additional carrot/stick (I saw one abusive manager threaten to get someone 'knocked out' of the program I'm thinking of,) as well as generally causing a level of artificial false seniority.
squokko 4y ago
I would say that yes, my job isn’t to hire the next CEO of the company, but the organization places constraints on hiring that eventually yield this. For example, the entire in-office culture vs WFH may be a way of identifying “straight shooters with upper management written all over them.” And that hiring ICs who can become managers directly makes me more likely to become a Director.
- nomel 4y ago
  When a company focuses on the management more than the product, technical expertise, and engineering culture, it’s doomed, with pruning of that management being the only way out. This is a song as old as time, in the tech world.
  - squokko 4y ago
    Agree that companies can disappear up their own asses but the value of great management is very high. Satya Nadella at Microsoft for example has been worth hundreds of billions of dollars to the shareholders. Guys that good do not grow on trees - they had Steve Ballmer who didn't know how to do anything except make money. And if Microsoft hadn't hired him 25 years ago, they would have probably had to put some McMBA in charge, and would have had one more Steve Ballmer era. So the value of that hire, 25 years ago, was extremely high.
    - nomel 4y ago
      I get that, but I imagine changing the hiring process to optimize the statistics of getting a CEO will be somewhat opposed to a hiring process that optimizes the statistics of being able to innovate, and deliver a new product. Innovation comes from the bottom up, since it's nearly always a technical constraint being solved. But, my perspective is primarily the hardware world. Maybe in-house innovation isn't necessary with something like a pure software OS and business suite.
      - squokko 4y ago
        I think all you have to do is hire engineers who seem like they have some people skills. The rest can be the law of large numbers

jtokoph 4y ago

At many companies now, the requirement to be promoted from Manager to Senior Manager is having X number of managers under you. This is frequently done by splitting the responsibilities of your current team into multiple teams. A great way to accelerate that is to have one of your ICs with context and rapport transition into managing one of the sub teams.

lgleason 4y ago
This is what ends up killing companies. Too many levels of management which causes massive inefficiency.
- to11mtm 4y ago
  Yep. There's also the slightly more twisted version of this, where companies have special 'leadership' training programs and the employees on teams get 'hand picked' by their managers or the org. It tends to lead to lead to knock-on effects like managers selecting for sycophants in hiring, the program being used as an additional carrot/stick (I saw one abusive manager threaten to get someone 'knocked out' of the program I'm thinking of,) as well as generally causing a level of artificial false seniority.

squokko 4y ago

I would say that yes, my job isn’t to hire the next CEO of the company, but the organization places constraints on hiring that eventually yield this. For example, the entire in-office culture vs WFH may be a way of identifying “straight shooters with upper management written all over them.” And that hiring ICs who can become managers directly makes me more likely to become a Director.

nomel 4y ago
When a company focuses on the management more than the product, technical expertise, and engineering culture, it’s doomed, with pruning of that management being the only way out. This is a song as old as time, in the tech world.
- squokko 4y ago
  Agree that companies can disappear up their own asses but the value of great management is very high. Satya Nadella at Microsoft for example has been worth hundreds of billions of dollars to the shareholders. Guys that good do not grow on trees - they had Steve Ballmer who didn't know how to do anything except make money. And if Microsoft hadn't hired him 25 years ago, they would have probably had to put some McMBA in charge, and would have had one more Steve Ballmer era. So the value of that hire, 25 years ago, was extremely high.
  - nomel 4y ago
    I get that, but I imagine changing the hiring process to optimize the statistics of getting a CEO will be somewhat opposed to a hiring process that optimizes the statistics of being able to innovate, and deliver a new product. Innovation comes from the bottom up, since it's nearly always a technical constraint being solved. But, my perspective is primarily the hardware world. Maybe in-house innovation isn't necessary with something like a pure software OS and business suite.
    - squokko 4y ago
      I think all you have to do is hire engineers who seem like they have some people skills. The rest can be the law of large numbers