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Director-level here. It's great that you gave it a shot, but management isn't for everyone! In fact, when most engineers come to me and say "I want to be a mana

Director-level here. It's great that you gave it a shot, but management isn't for everyone! In fact, when most engineers come to me and say "I want to be a manager," the first thing I say is "No, you don't." Not in a judgmental way, and not in a mean way, but more as a warning system to say "You want more money or responsibility, and management is one of many ways to get those things." The other thing I say is, "At some point during your management career, _you will stop writing code on a daily basis_." If you like writing code more than anything else, this probably isn't the right role for you! We then spend the rest of the conversation talking about what their goals are, and how we can get them there. Some folks are insistent that they want to be a manager, and we figure out a path to do that, and some folks are sufficiently deterred by the things I said. It's not that I don't want you to be a manager, it's that I want you to have a job that you are excited about, and for _most_ engineers, management is soul-draining. They want to write code and solve problems, not sit in endless meetings! Because of this, I personally have zero compunction about anyone who becomes a manager and then comes to me and says, "This isn't for me. I hate it. Can I go back to being an IC?" No problem at all. So with all of that said, management is NOT "a part of career progression." You do NOT have to go into management. Most tech companies have two tracks for career progression: technical and management. At most companies, a Staff Engineer is the equivalent of a Manager, and a Principal engineer is the equivalent of a Director. You can continue to lead teams in a technical fashion without losing your entire week to meetings and people management. It's possible. Your current company may not have that structure, but a lot of companies do! If you feel comfortable doing this, I would go to your boss and say, "Hey, I don't love this management thing. I think I would have a bigger impact as an IC. Can we work on a transition plan to get me back to full-time IC work? I am happy to help hire my backfill." This is very, very normal. Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong. Do not feel bad for yourself, do not feel like you failed. It's simply a bad fit, and you are looking for a way to improve your own happiness and your own career path. Good luck!

oceanplexian 4y ago
> So with all of that said, management is NOT "a part of career progression." Legally, in order to be able to do certain things in a corporation you need to be a manager, director, or VP (i.e. sign contracts). A "Staff" is a made up term that is not recognized by any legal system or secretary of state, and that person will never be able fulfill vital corporate functions. Someone who is not a manager will never be privy to the full picture on people management, corporate finance, and so on due to issues with legal liability and corporate law. I understand that there are smart people who want to "Do management without any of the responsibilities" but the real world doesn't work that way. If the ultimate rung of the career ladder is "Business Owner", management is definitely a required step on that journey.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Legally, in order to be able to do certain things in a corporation you need to be a manager, director, or VP (i.e. sign contracts). (1) you probably mean “e.g.”, not “i.e.”, since you said “some things”, but “sign contracts” is just one thing. Latin abbreviations may be convenient compared to writing out full English words, but they aren’t interchangable. (2) In either case, this is wrong, since even with “e.g.” it would require “sign cobtracts” to be a valid example, and its not. To sign contracts for a corporation, you need authority from the board, which it is free to give to anyone (even a non-employee). There are a few individuals or combinations that people can safely assume have such authority as long as they don’t have specific negative information, but it is much smaller than the list you provide, and not germane to who can have signing authority.
  - oceanplexian 4y ago
    It’s really irrelevant that a board can give signing permission to Joe Blow - Sr. Wizard III, because the counterparty would never accept such a contract. No bank, for example, is going to write a note to a corporation that unless the person in question is clearly an officer. I only mention this because I’m on my third corporation serving as an officer. Ignoring the pedantic bits an above, an employee will never completely climb the career ladder without a management role. You can pretend that corporate officers don’t exist, or come up with an arcane loophole that doesn’t reflect reality. It’s not really how corporations are run.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > It’s really irrelevant that a board can give signing permission to Joe Blow - Sr. Wizard III, because the counterparty would never accept such a contract For significant contracts, they’ll either want proof of the existence and scope of signing authority or, without that, accept only the specific officers that the law will bind the corporation for as long as the counterparty doesn't have negative knowledge, which (in CA) is: Acting individually: no one at all, not even the Chairman/President. Acting together: one each of either the Chairman, President, or any Vice Preisdent and the Secretary, Chief Financial Officer, or any Assistant Secretary or Assistant Treasurer. (See, Cal. Corporations Code, § 313) I suppose its possible that some counterparties may take risks on less significant contracts by presuming lesser titles have some signing authority without specific evidence (why, though?), but I can’t imagine that anyone whose signature alone isn’t presumptively valid under applicable state law to bind the company would ever be preferred on the basis of their title versus someone with a less impressive title and documented signing authority. > Ignoring the pedantic bits an above, an employee will never completely climb the career ladder without a management role. I think you are confusing a “career ladder” (of which there tend to be multiple within an institution, including, in many areas, parallel “manager” and “specialist” tracks in the same domain) with the organizational heirarchy (of which there is one, and where the very top is definitively a manager). Yes, you will never be a CEO without being in a management role, that is trivially true.

oceanplexian 4y ago

> So with all of that said, management is NOT "a part of career progression." Legally, in order to be able to do certain things in a corporation you need to be a manager, director, or VP (i.e. sign contracts). A "Staff" is a made up term that is not recognized by any legal system or secretary of state, and that person will never be able fulfill vital corporate functions. Someone who is not a manager will never be privy to the full picture on people management, corporate finance, and so on due to issues with legal liability and corporate law. I understand that there are smart people who want to "Do management without any of the responsibilities" but the real world doesn't work that way. If the ultimate rung of the career ladder is "Business Owner", management is definitely a required step on that journey.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> Legally, in order to be able to do certain things in a corporation you need to be a manager, director, or VP (i.e. sign contracts). (1) you probably mean “e.g.”, not “i.e.”, since you said “some things”, but “sign contracts” is just one thing. Latin abbreviations may be convenient compared to writing out full English words, but they aren’t interchangable. (2) In either case, this is wrong, since even with “e.g.” it would require “sign cobtracts” to be a valid example, and its not. To sign contracts for a corporation, you need authority from the board, which it is free to give to anyone (even a non-employee). There are a few individuals or combinations that people can safely assume have such authority as long as they don’t have specific negative information, but it is much smaller than the list you provide, and not germane to who can have signing authority.
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  It’s really irrelevant that a board can give signing permission to Joe Blow - Sr. Wizard III, because the counterparty would never accept such a contract. No bank, for example, is going to write a note to a corporation that unless the person in question is clearly an officer. I only mention this because I’m on my third corporation serving as an officer. Ignoring the pedantic bits an above, an employee will never completely climb the career ladder without a management role. You can pretend that corporate officers don’t exist, or come up with an arcane loophole that doesn’t reflect reality. It’s not really how corporations are run.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > It’s really irrelevant that a board can give signing permission to Joe Blow - Sr. Wizard III, because the counterparty would never accept such a contract For significant contracts, they’ll either want proof of the existence and scope of signing authority or, without that, accept only the specific officers that the law will bind the corporation for as long as the counterparty doesn't have negative knowledge, which (in CA) is: Acting individually: no one at all, not even the Chairman/President. Acting together: one each of either the Chairman, President, or any Vice Preisdent and the Secretary, Chief Financial Officer, or any Assistant Secretary or Assistant Treasurer. (See, Cal. Corporations Code, § 313) I suppose its possible that some counterparties may take risks on less significant contracts by presuming lesser titles have some signing authority without specific evidence (why, though?), but I can’t imagine that anyone whose signature alone isn’t presumptively valid under applicable state law to bind the company would ever be preferred on the basis of their title versus someone with a less impressive title and documented signing authority. > Ignoring the pedantic bits an above, an employee will never completely climb the career ladder without a management role. I think you are confusing a “career ladder” (of which there tend to be multiple within an institution, including, in many areas, parallel “manager” and “specialist” tracks in the same domain) with the organizational heirarchy (of which there is one, and where the very top is definitively a manager). Yes, you will never be a CEO without being in a management role, that is trivially true.