9 ms·
This trope of "growing" from an engineer to a manager needs to die. I grow as an engineer when I learn new stuff or become better at building things. Becoming a
by usrnm 3y ago
This trope of "growing" from an engineer to a manager needs to die. I grow as an engineer when I learn new stuff or become better at building things. Becoming a manager is changing jobs, not growth in any meaningful way. Not even in salary in many places
- Aaargh20318 3y agoCongratulations, you've been working as a baker for 10 years and have perfected the art of making bread. You have now been promoted to butcher.
- ranguna 3y agoHmmmm a butcher would be like a business analyst in the software development world maybe? Both still put they hands on the product, but in completely different perspectives. Maybe a store manager would be more applicable?
- ddmichael 3y agoInstead of having been "promoted" to a shepherd?
- xbryanx 3y agoUmm, haven’t you just been promoted to bakery manager?
- irrational 3y agoThe point is that the jobs are completely different. They require different skill sets.
- dasil003 3y agoIt's not a good point though, because one of the important traits of a good engineering manager is that they understand the work of the ICs they are managing (at least to a reasonable depth).
- irrational 3y agoI’ve had many good engineering managers over the decades. None were technical. But they were good because they did have skills in things like running interference for us. In my experience, people skills are far more important than technical skills for good engineering managers.
- dasil003 3y agoI’ve also had a handful of good non-technical managers over the decades, and they succeeded by having trust in the right technical people (for whatever reason, sometimes it may have been luck). What I’ve seen more often is non-technical managers place trust in the wrong people, get taken for a ride, and generally fail to pinpoint problems correctly. You’re right that people skills are more important but they are often necessary but insufficient depending on the specific team and business situation.
- DougBTX 3y agoAn astonishing number of debates are between one group of people saying “Foo needs A” and another saying “Foo needs B” when really... Foo needs a good helping of A and B.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y agoDammit. I was hoping for candlestick-maker.
- arnvald 3y ago> Not even in salary in many places What needs to die is this trope. Few places cut salaries when people move to EM role. This might be true for some big tech companies, but even then it's only in the beginning. If you look at companies that have unified levels for SDEs and EMs (Google, Amazon), you can see that on the same level EMs have slightly higher TC. Not to mention that there's a whole world outside of big tech where moving to management is considered a promotion (and often the only way to grow, because dual career ladder is not implemented everywhere). The cases where EMs make more than SDEs are really way more common than the reverse situation.
- vpastore 3y ago[dead]
- guggle 3y agoI was about to write the exact same comment. I wish engineering experience was more recognized, especially in software fields.
- slouc 3y agoIf it makes you feel any better, in many big companies that's already the case. Talking about modern Big Tech, not dinosaurs like Oracle or IBM.
- slouc 3y agoAt my company (which I feel more comfortable not disclosing), the scale looks like this: senior engineer == engineering manager. staff engineer == senior engineering manager. senior staff engineer == director / VP This is in terms of scope, responsibility, salary, whom you report to and on which level... everything.
- ddmichael 3y agoI think this makes a lot of sense.
- the-smug-one 3y ago>not dinosaurs like Oracle I doubt Mark Reinhold, Brian Goetz or John Rose are undervalued at Oracle because of them not being managers.
- slouc 3y agoSure, but what I meant is that they might (and I could be wrong) having the old school mindset where your manager is your boss. I worked at Ericsson and I can confirm that's the case over there. Instead, manager should be someone on your "level", just doing different things. We like to say: engineer leads craft and influences people, manager leads people and influences craft.
- xyzelement 3y agoI think it is growth or at least growth opportunity. Acquiring incremental engineering skills is great and we should all do it. But let's admit that it's just that - incremental. You go from being a good engineer to slightly better engineer- something you already are. When you pivot to management or something else that's more different to you - you are taking on a bigger challenge and there's no guarantee of success. In order to succeed you need to hone a whole different set of skills - and if you manage to do that, you will certainly have grown in a real way. I totally get the sentiment that going into management isn't the only way to advance a career and I agree. I am just saying that those who take that path indeed open themselves up to a challenge and evolution.
- igiveup 3y agoYou could say the same about a manager becoming an engineer
- xyzelement 3y agoI am the person you are replying to and I totally agree.
- fatfingerd 3y agoIsn't that a growth removal?
- xyzelement 3y agoNo. If I somehow start as someone who can "only" be a manager (say, mba route) and then learn engineering, I've stretched my capacity more than double. Because I am not then gonna go down to a junior eng role, but I may flex into eng when it makes sense.
- nikau 3y agoThing is, it's easier to wing your way through as a manager than an engineer.
- llm_nerd 3y ago
- newswasboring 3y agoI don't get this comment. I guess because I think we are not aligned on what a manager is or maybe our engineering styles are very different. For me a manager is someone who leads through influence, in engineering managers lead towards an engineering solution. To me it just feels like a different way to solve the same class of problems, just bigger. I absolutely feel like I am doing engineer, the difference being solving bigger problems and a lot fewer problems are being directly solved by me. How do you see a management position?
- nudgeee 3y agoIMHO engineers should also (and should be expected to) lead through influence. In my mind, as engineers grow they should be expected to tackle problems and influence solutions of increased scope, complexity and ambiguity. Junior engineers should be able to drive smaller, well scoped projects. Senior+ engineers should be expected to tackle complex, cross-org, ill-defined technical challenges, examples include technical mergers of company acquisitions, large scale migrations of business critical systems, technical design of big bets (also analysis on which big bets to take), evaluate new technologies/platforms, dev tooling to multiply productivity, etc A lot of this requires buy-in and stakeholder management to succeed.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- newswasboring 3y agoRight, and in my company that is a manager. An engineer who is good at leading through influence. I am confused as to what other kind of management there is. I guess there is people management, hiring and firing kind of things, but I think that is not what we are talking about on HN.
- nudgeee 3y agoThings off the top of my head: - Alignment / priority management / keeping team focused - Saying yes/no to projects - Medium term planning, resource balancing - Helping to set team vision and mission - Reporting to upper management (up) - Keep up to date and abreast with what’s happening in the org, filtering info to the team (down) - People management (career, performance, strengths/weaknesses etc) - Spotting and creating opportunities for the team - Often acting as a tie breaker for decisions (including technical) - Often involved in steering technical design and solutions - Help keep the team productive and happy - Probably a ton more I’m forgetting Tons of finesse and strong communication skills required for this as well as strong technical experience. And then there’s project management which I haven’t touched on — either can be done directly by engineers (personally I enjoy it, some don’t which is fine), engineering managers or dedicated technical project/program managers.
- mindvirus 3y agoEven in FAANG it's a promotion. If not immediately, the cap for ICs is much lower. Principal engineer at FAANG (L8): likely one of the best engineers in the world. Engineering director at FAANG (L8): manager who's been there for a while and is good at acquiring more reports. As a ratio, there are far more eng directors to managers than principal engineers to engineers. All that said, know what you want in your career. If you love building, build. If you want money, do management.
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoIt’s true but for most people in practice they won’t make it to L8 either as IC or manager so it’s really more a question or do you want to finish your career as an L6 IC or manager.
- surajrmal 3y agoMost people can get to L7 by mid 40s if not sooner. People who don't progress seem to do it based on choice (want less responsibility, unwilling to change teams to find more opportunities, etc). Careers don't end in people's 30s.
- lightbendover 3y agoI’m sorry, but that comment is absurd. MOST people can make it to L7 in their mid 40s? Most people can’t even get in the door at entry-level trying their very hardest, hard-stop-period.
- 29athrowaway 3y ago"Most people"? So if you start with a population of 100,000 employees at entry level, after a few years "most" of them will end up as L7? That does not make any sense. Senior is the terminal band for "most".
- lanstin 3y agoIf there is any random variability in promotion guidelines or policies or even process, then the probability of advancing from level N to level N+1 approaches one over time. For many typical corporations, the policies change often enough that you will get promoted quite a bit higher than you intended, assuming of course you do your job, ensure that your work is useful, and get along with people reasonably well.
- SkyPuncher 3y agoChanging and growing aren’t mutually exclusive. While you can absolutely be a manager without extensive IC experience, most people will benefit greatly from having deep IC experience before becoming a manager.
- andsoitis 3y ago> I grow as an engineer when I learn new stuff or become better at building things. Becoming a manager is changing jobs, not growth in any meaningful way. That's a very linear outlook. One can also grow be expanding the base of skills one has, and that often comes by shifted to adjacent jobs where you can capitalize on your first skill. There's some benefit in engineers who want to grow by transitioning to manager: nobody wants a non-engineer as your manager/leader - how would they understand your work or attract fantastic talent? Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying for an engineer to grow one has to become a manager, but it is a legitimate strategy.
- thumbuddy 3y agoin a lot of places they refuse to let engineers become managers. Technical experts, distinguished engineers, CTOs, etc, but management is distinctly different then writing code. Human beings are not computer programs. Being good at one doesn't mean you'd be good at the other whatsoever.
- benreesman 3y agoAgreed. I’ve done both, and while a good Engineering Manager has to be a good engineer (how is one supposed to supervise something they don’t understand), mastering one skill set more or adding a second one isn’t more or less “growth”.
- greesil 3y agoIt's a different set of tasks and skulls but having a background in the relevant domain is in my opinion required. Working in ML, having a manager that doesn't understand statistical significance, or even key metrics like precision and recall is a recipe for unhappy employees and bad decisions.
- GreedClarifies 3y agoI think that this has been somewhat nullified by the changes over the last few years where managers are supposed to be people managers exclusively, while high level ICs supposed to create direction and evaluate technical merit. It is a difficult balance.
- irrational 3y agoI think of it as horizontal vs vertical. An IC grows horizontally over their career as they learn new technical things. A manager grows vertically as they move up the chain and are managing more and more people.
- ravenstine 3y agoI just don't like how often it's implied that management is the inevitable next rung on the ladder after staff or lead engineer. As if I'm not ambitious enough because I just want to be a good engineer. Employers sometimes dangle the management carrot in front of me, and some people have been outright confused when I tell them I don't covet a management role.
- draw_down 3y ago[dead]
- bjhgvkk 3y agoNobody goes from engineer to CEO with a million dollar golden parachute for doing a terrible job. As an engineer you work your ass off for someone else to take all the credit and leave you homeless. It’s growing - hell it’s escaping Getting as far away from working constantly for no reward and more goddam leatcode Interviews where 25yo who know nothing gatekeep your career - maybe you live in a different reality than I do, but I can always just build for myself at home.
- watwut 3y agoPeople do not go from an engineer to CEO full stop. And also, plenty of CEOs with a million dollar golden parachutes do terrible jobs. So does large parts of management.
- coldcode 3y agoThe CEO of SABRE (biggest airline res company) went in 15 years from Software Engineer to CEO. He was then forced out when he objected to the company becoming public again (owned by Hedge Fund). I am sure its not common though.
- YZF 3y agoI have seen this happen. software engineer -> president of a billion dollar company -> CEO of another >billion dollar company.
- murderberry 3y agoYes and no. It's a common trope at many tech companies that these are two completely separate tracks, with no special upside to either. But then, here's the reality: any large company will have a new for an army of directors and VPs, compared to only a handful of ultra-senior, visionary engineers. Take Google and compare the ratio of Jeff Dean-type folks to senior managerial staff collecting similar paychecks. So yeah, if your goal is to retire early without depending too much on luck or on being exceptional, management is your career growth path. For better or worse.
- SergeAx 3y agoWhen I gradually became a manager, I continued to be better at building things, not only with my hands, but also by aligning and enabling other engineers and entire teams. So in a grand scheme of things it is the same way, with greater impact and responsibility.
- taway1874 3y agoWell ... maybe it's not a "trope"?