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Career Asymtotes

• actionfromafar 1y ago
  Asymptote though
  • rectang 1y ago
    The article author got it right, it's just the HN submitter who got it wrong. Original title: "Waxing Asymptotic in Career Velocity"
• iamnotarobotman 1y ago
  > The point is this: you will be very dissatisfied with your career if you expect a promotion every 2 years. Very simple math would say you’re setting yourself up for decades of disappointment. Recommended Reading: [0] [0] https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2025/10/15/pathetic-losers.html https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2025/10/15/pathe...
• Ethee 1y ago
  This kind of self meta-analysis can be amusing to think about sometimes, but I think more often than not it's actually harmful to your own sense of progress or worth. In my opinion the two sides of this coin that are hard to reconcile are: "You shouldn't limit your own ability" and "It's important to be realistic". Comparing yourself to those around you is human nature, but here you're asking us to compare ourselves to what we imagine is the peak of ourselves in order to stay realistic. I guarantee you that the people around you who are actually making forward progress haven't given a single thought to whether or not they've "peaked".
  • Nevermark 1y ago
    I think an important skill is to comfortably see things in completely different ways, and leverage each view for how it helps. Both views are simplified models, there is no conflict. Non-parallel lines are not a contradiction. For best navigation, triangulate. In a high N-dimensional nonlinear situation, accumulate lines/models/viewpoints.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• Supermancho 1y ago
  Don't confuse arbitrary career ranking (which varies org to org) with earning potential. I have a relatively low effort remote job with fantastic compensation in a very large company. The responsibility is low, the opportunities to move about are many and often appear. I get job offers all the time and think: Yeah, it's more money, but will it be better conditions? This is the longest I've ever worked at a company (over half decade) and I am always waiting until just after getting my cost of living increase and bonus, before reconsidering.
  • cheepin 1y ago
    That’s a pretty solid endorsement. Where do you work?
    • Supermancho 1y ago
      I can say confidently, not JPMC.
• gundmc 1y ago
  Do more than 20% of engineers really believe they'll be E6 at a FAANG by the time they're 37? I think most folks are more grounded than that.
  • roncesvalles 1y ago
    I think it's relatively straightforward to get to E5 even if just by being hired as one. A good number, I want to say a majority but don't have the data, of externally hired E5 at FAANG were E4 in their previous role. Getting E5 to E6 seems to be the great filter. But if you know what it takes to go from E5 to E6, I think going from E6 to E9 is smooth sailing (provided you find wind in your sails). But by then the marginal utility of a promotion starts dropping sharply. If you're already earning upwards of $450k as an E5, $550k or even $800k isn't that attractive.
    • sokoloff 1y ago
      > But by then the marginal utility of a promotion starts dropping sharply. If you're already earning upwards of $450k as an E5, $550k or even $800k isn't that attractive. Going from $450K/yr to $800K/yr probably triples or quadruples the amount you can save per year without feeling like you’re constantly scrimping. That drives down the time to F-you money, which is appealing and gives substantial psychological safety/power.
      • xp84 1y ago
        I’d agree with you too. I’m working to get to retirement. Savings rate is huge. Assuming I can get to that point, after I have no reason to need more money from employment I’ll be working on one-person startups that I don’t ever need to make money to scratch all my hacker itches rather than working to make some VC guys richer.
• ZephyrBlu 1y ago
  The thing I'm most curious about from this article is how/why the author was demoted from E9 to E7. A demotion in itself is pretty unusual, but being bumped down 2 levels seems super weird. E: ok watched an interview the author gave and the answer was very boring. He requested a demotion because he moved from management back to IC.
• jebarker 1y ago
  I think about this plateauing question quite a bit. I'm 44 and around the E6 level. I think it is very challenging for me to progress much further up the ladder. I'm not confident I have the skillset required and trying to develop those (leadership and strategic) skills feels very hard to me. But I don't find that at all disappointing since I'm fairly confident I can continue to progress sideways. Maybe it's naive or arrogant but I think I could probably get close to a similar level again in a different field and eventually that'll be what I try to do.
  • d13z 1y ago
    The same is happening to me. I live in Europe and I'm a staff engineer with almost 40 y/o but I have to be honest and I think I'm not going to be able to grow on the corporate track. Whatever comes next will come from other sources, maybe consulting, maybe teaching, but I don't see an option moving forward, and I'm kind of fine with it.
• brian_cunnie 1y ago
  Measuring oneself as an engineer by the title of the salary band you're in is a disservice. I remember at Bell Labs they had one title: MTS (Member of Technical Staff). You were an engineer, and that was that. (disclaimer: there were a handful of DMTSes (Distinguished Member of Technical Staff)). No one said, "I'm an E7" or "I'm a Staff Engineer II". Those statements strike me as distasteful. And begs the question if we're being suckered by Human Resource's gamification of work. I worked at a company, Pivotal Labs, where everyone's title was "Pivot". It made for an egalitarian workplace. That changed after the acquisition, and we got titles. My proudest moment? Not when I was promoted from Senior Engineer to Staff Engineer, but rather the after-hours work I did with Dimtriy to expand our offering to include IPv6. At my current startup, there are no titles, and I'm grateful for that.
  • almostgotcaught 1y ago
    > Measuring oneself as an engineer by the title of the salary band you're in is a disservice. It's really not that deep - people do this because both a title and salary are effectively money you can bank and that's the only thing that matters - we don't work grueling, stressful, tedious, jobs just the sake of "a hard day's work". > Not when I was promoted from Senior Engineer to Staff Engineer, but rather the after-hours work I did with Dimtriy to expand our offering to include IPv6. I wish people would introspect more deeply instead of perpetuating toxic relationships with corporations; you're basically saying your most gratifying experience at work (where you are given a small slice of the net on your labor) was when you did something completely abstract and not when you got more money, more status, more whatever? Ok that's like saying my most gratifying experience at school was not when I graduated but when I had to sit in detention. Note I could've said "when I discovered XYZ mathematical principle" but I didn't because they're both equally as arbitrary in the overall scheme (learn skills and move into the workforce).
    • dmoy 1y ago
      > are effectively money you can bank and that's the only thing that matters We may have to agree to disagree here. Not even just talking about the case where someone's worked in the tech industry long enough with a low enough expense lifestyle that money literally does not matter to them anymore... A lot of people will work specific jobs not because they're trying to optimize for the most possible money.
• 1970-01-01 1y ago
  I think this is the first time I disagree with everything said. A properly motivated man can be whatever they want. Astronaut is absolutely within reach, along with anything else, with the exception of POTUS if you weren't born on US soil. Do not conflate your lack of 110% motivation to a cause/goal/solution as lies.
  • sushisource 1y ago
    I mean that's just obviously, objectively, not true. If you're born with 12-inch legs you are _not_ going to be an elite marathon runner. Heck, even if you're born with average genetics, you're not going to be an elite runner. What would make us think the same thing isn't true of mental activities? Obviously there's a lot more noise in the signal, and it's a lot more subjective, but there's pretty much 0% chance that if anyone just "tries hard enough" they can become a genius.
    • 1970-01-01 1y ago
      >I mean that's just obviously, objectively, not true. If you're born with 12-inch legs you are _not_ going to be an elite marathon runner My empiric objection is simply to watch this video. Everything here is objectively true: https://youtu.be/cEItmb_a20M https://youtu.be/cEItmb_a20M
      • sushisource 11mo ago
        That's super duper cool, but, it doesn't refute my statement. If what you're saying is "you can do anything you want at a level that will challenge you". Yeah, sure, but not at a level comparable to the best of the best.
  • raw_anon_1111 1y ago
    I am 5 foot four and was born with a limp, do you think if I tried really hard I could have been a pro basketball player? The entire idea that anyone can do anything they put their mind to is a lie. There are all sorts of path dependencies that limit what people can do.
• cortesoft 1y ago
  I have often felt a little out of place when I hear how focused on career growth some people are. I was excited to advance the first few years of my career, but it didn’t take long for me to realize I just didn’t have the desire or need to keep trying to climb the career ladder. Once I started making good money working on problems I enjoyed with the level of respect and autonomy I desired, I stopped even thinking about trying to “advance my career”. I would rather do a good job at my current position, and not try to fight for a higher level job I might not even like. What’s the point?
  • AaronAPU 1y ago
    My career goal was always to keep programming, because it was what I enjoyed doing the most. I resisted every single move which would result in doing things other than programming. It wasn’t a good approach for money making, but at least the primary goal was achieved. No idea which path would’ve been a better life with all things considered.
• stego-tech 1y ago
  I consider myself lucky that I got to witness this blog post peter out in real life with a parental figure of mine, and thus internalize what sort of career track I’d like to have/work toward. For me? I’d like to be a CIO someday - and believe I can get there, albeit for a smaller firm where outcomes are more important than politics, which rules out basically all of the Fortune 500. I’m fine if I don’t reach that point, though, as everything outside of work is ultimately more important - relationships, hobbies, enjoying this fleeting existence. Work is a means to an end, and so my skills are means to the end of a better career. I don’t think in terms of salary bands or titles, I look at my career in terms of skills and opportunities. The traditional career is dead, is my (meandering) point. This article gives some sorely needed wake-up calls that we need to think bigger and more holistically than mere promotion cycles if we want to find our personal success.
• dasil003 1y ago
  It’s odd to me that someone who reached E9 at Meta seems so unaware of the capriciousness and political aspect of promotions at high levels. These are coveted and extremely rare roles that many talented and ambitious people are earnestly working towards and most will never achieve just by the numbers. I see nothing wrong with ambition but to measure your career by level is a reductive perspective that can undermine the specific accomplishments and relationships you have built. This obsession with levels is something I see with many junior engineers who have gone through school chasing shibboleths of success. Stanford, MIT, always chasing the well-defined carrot. But often failing to understand there’s a pretty low ceiling to success on the well trod path. Real value comes from solving novel and ambiguous problems without anyone telling you how to do it. You have to realize those levels are meant to capture something about how the most effective technical leaders operate, it’s not a roadmap or a checklist for you to cargo cult. The things that matter are the quality of the work you do and the perception thereof by those in power. “Levels” are just secondary HR structure to manage the masses of employees in large corporations, and if you think too much about them you’re taking your eyes off the ball.