A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers • Hacker News Board

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#41

Post by brador » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 9:57 AM UTC

rndn wrote: post #38

brador wrote: post #17

This is a list of things a CEO wants managers to do and be like. IMO following these rules will keep you submissive and his castle nice and orderly. Not what you want if you have an ounce of ambition. To actually survive and excel as a manager you need to play politics and win turf battles. Take on the highest value projects and ship. To get the good projects you'll need to fight because everyone wants them. TLDR: Ad…

According to the Peter Principle [1], the entire concept of promotion is flawed in that people get promoted according to their performance in their current role, not the future role. Perhaps, it would generally be better if promotions would require a test run in the new role over a long time period (e.g. a year) before it is set in stone. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

Just because someone is promoted doesn't mean they can't be fired or demoted. What difference is their in your 1 year training period suggestion and simply promoting then firing or demoting in 1 year if things don't work out?

I personally prefer providing opportunities for a gradual increase in responsibilities over outright "here's your new job title and fresh office". Then once they've shown capability with the new roles they get the increased pay and job title. I guess that's the middle ground between the two possibilities you suggested.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#42

Post by gadders » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:01 AM UTC

jasode wrote: post #34

plinkplonk wrote: post #12

"Don’t manage only to advance your career. Many tech companies have parallel career paths to seniority for both technical and managerial high-performers." Is this really true? Many engineers do become managers only to advance their careers. The "parallel" technical career path never seems to deliver equal amounts of power, or even money, as compared to managers on the same level. Even when a rough parity exists on pa…

>The "parallel" technical career path never seems to deliver equal amounts of power, or even money, as compared to managers on the same level. This is true. There's a self-deprecating joke about CIO being an acronym for "Career Is Over" because the Chief Information Officers are never promoted to CEO. On the other hand, it's common for the board to promote COOs and CFOs to CEOs. If tech people want to be CEOs, they h…

If you're a CIO in a large company, your life is more about managing budgets than doing anything technical.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#43

Post by eitally » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:09 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #12

"Don’t manage only to advance your career. Many tech companies have parallel career paths to seniority for both technical and managerial high-performers." Is this really true? Many engineers do become managers only to advance their careers. The "parallel" technical career path never seems to deliver equal amounts of power, or even money, as compared to managers on the same level. Even when a rough parity exists on pa…

The challenge is that a lot of companies don't place engineers into the "critical skills" category, which leads to the [perceived by business & IT leadership] natural method of increasing an excellent engineer's sphere of influence being to promote them into management. Sometimes this works wonderfully, but it's obvious how spectacularly it can fail, too. If a company doesn't have engineering as a core competency, they're far more likely to fall into this trap than a company that does.

I'm speaking from experience here, having spent 15 years working for a company where promoting "technical managers" was a source of pride ... and 90% of the time the fallout of such promotions was that engineering quality degraded.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#44

Post by eitally » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:15 AM UTC

jasode wrote: post #34

plinkplonk wrote: post #12

"Don’t manage only to advance your career. Many tech companies have parallel career paths to seniority for both technical and managerial high-performers." Is this really true? Many engineers do become managers only to advance their careers. The "parallel" technical career path never seems to deliver equal amounts of power, or even money, as compared to managers on the same level. Even when a rough parity exists on pa…

>The "parallel" technical career path never seems to deliver equal amounts of power, or even money, as compared to managers on the same level. This is true. There's a self-deprecating joke about CIO being an acronym for "Career Is Over" because the Chief Information Officers are never promoted to CEO. On the other hand, it's common for the board to promote COOs and CFOs to CEOs. If tech people want to be CEOs, they h…

CIOs are almost always* "keep the lights on" people. It's thankless work, and very frustrating, especially in corporations that don't value technology as a differentiator. In those cases, a lot of CIOs are promoted from within the Finance or Sales organizations, not any technical org, and they spend the vast majority of their time balancing restrictive budgets and managing attrition [of under-appreciated staff].

* There are plenty of highly appreciated, creative CIOs, but they're a minority ... which is why all the media aimed at CIOs & IT leaders (e.g. cio.com, etc) has spent the last couple years spreading doom & gloom about the profession, saying things like "the age of the CIO is over -- it's all about the CDO now" or "CMO budgets now exceed CIO spend", etc. It's also why the majority of CIOs these days don't sit on the board or are even in the CEO's inner circle, and instead report to either the COO or CFO.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#45

Post by eitally » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:17 AM UTC

thomasrossi wrote: post #28

plinkplonk wrote: post #12

"Don’t manage only to advance your career. Many tech companies have parallel career paths to seniority for both technical and managerial high-performers." Is this really true? Many engineers do become managers only to advance their careers. The "parallel" technical career path never seems to deliver equal amounts of power, or even money, as compared to managers on the same level. Even when a rough parity exists on pa…

In Deloitte there are now "orange profiles" which are only technical and are earning more than functional figures. It is true though that at the best of my knowledge no "orange profile" has made it yet to a Board.

But why would they if they're optimizing for technical skills? It seems the two are mostly orthogonal, so this wouldn't be expected. Not many biz execs are superstar engineers.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#46

Post by eitally » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:18 AM UTC

rndn wrote: post #38

brador wrote: post #17

This is a list of things a CEO wants managers to do and be like. IMO following these rules will keep you submissive and his castle nice and orderly. Not what you want if you have an ounce of ambition. To actually survive and excel as a manager you need to play politics and win turf battles. Take on the highest value projects and ship. To get the good projects you'll need to fight because everyone wants them. TLDR: Ad…

According to the Peter Principle [1], the entire concept of promotion is flawed in that people get promoted according to their performance in their current role, not the future role. Perhaps, it would generally be better if promotions would require a test run in the new role over a long time period (e.g. a year) before it is set in stone. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

A lot of companies only promote individuals after they have been acting in a de facto capacity as the higher position.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#47

Post by Aoyagi » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:18 AM UTC

Well, it seems to have worked well for AMD (Su) and GM (Barra) so far.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#48

Post by sgt101 » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:18 AM UTC

gadders wrote: post #42

jasode wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The "parallel" technical career path never seems to deliver equal amounts of power, or even money, as compared to managers on the same level. This is true. There's a self-deprecating joke about CIO being an acronym for "Career Is Over" because the Chief Information Officers are never promoted to CEO. On the other hand, it's common for the board to promote COOs and CFOs to CEOs. If tech people want to be CEOs, they h…

If you're a CIO in a large company, your life is more about managing budgets than doing anything technical.

If you're a CIO at a large company your life is about leadership, or you will become a CIO at a small company really fast.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#49

Post by eitally » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:20 AM UTC

brador wrote: post #41

rndn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Peter Principle [1], the entire concept of promotion is flawed in that people get promoted according to their performance in their current role, not the future role. Perhaps, it would generally be better if promotions would require a test run in the new role over a long time period (e.g. a year) before it is set in stone. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

Just because someone is promoted doesn't mean they can't be fired or demoted. What difference is their in your 1 year training period suggestion and simply promoting then firing or demoting in 1 year if things don't work out? I personally prefer providing opportunities for a gradual increase in responsibilities over outright "here's your new job title and fresh office". Then once they've shown capability with the new…

Most companies don't demote at all. Even if an employee requests demotion (I have gone through this a few times, where a great technical staffer was promoted to supervisor or manager and then decided later that they really hated the change.), it was always a huge hassle trying to convince HR to accommodate it, and the employee in question had to write a personal letter requesting the demotion and explaining why.)

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#50

Post by sgt101 » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 10:23 AM UTC

eitally wrote: post #46

rndn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Peter Principle [1], the entire concept of promotion is flawed in that people get promoted according to their performance in their current role, not the future role. Perhaps, it would generally be better if promotions would require a test run in the new role over a long time period (e.g. a year) before it is set in stone. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

A lot of companies only promote individuals after they have been acting in a de facto capacity as the higher position.

Yes - and this is commonly misunderstood. The critical thing in getting a promotion is the ability to demonstrate the capabilities that will be required in the new position. This means actually being able to point at examples of you doing that successfully. This is really different from being brilliant at your current job.