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That’s why it’s much safer to move up on the management track. An IC on a higher level almost has to be able to walk on water and constantly produce outstanding
by rqtwteye 4y ago
That’s why it’s much safer to move up on the management track. An IC on a higher level almost has to be able to walk on water and constantly produce outstanding work whereas for managers it’s mucb more possible to do your job as usual without producing breakthroughs.
- CydeWeys 4y agoI think the upper middle managers were actually hit harder in this layoff than the higher level eng ICs.
- aix1 4y agoAnecdotally, this rings true. However, I also wanted to point out that "Distinguished SWE" != "IC". There are plenty of L8/L9 Google employees who are on technical ladders but whose jobs are mainly -- or solely -- about people management. Those people have Principal/Distinguished X as their title. This was very common in the olden days and remains true for long-tenured employees. Google's been moving away from this model by requiring that employees move onto a management ladder once their job is mainly about people management. However, I doubt anyone would want to piss off all those Principal and Distinguished SWEs/RSes by forcing them onto a different ladder and replacing their titles.
- xmprt 4y agoThe flipside is that it's very difficult to get promoted as a manager. As an IC you can at least show some skills to prove that you deserve to be at the next level. A manager can usually only get promoted if there's enough scope or if there's an opening at the higher level (eg. senior manager left).
- tehlike 4y agoYou should check the percentage of LN for N>=7 for ic and manager track.
- commiepatrol 4y agoFrom my experience it’s the exact opposite
- QuercusMax 4y agoFor sure. At Google, L7 ICs are rare. L7 managers, not so much.