A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers • Hacker News Board

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#101

Post by __abc » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:52 PM UTC

carc wrote: post #15

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…

FWIW, I know senior engineers that chose the technical route rather than manager route, who make absolutely ridiculous amounts of money. Like close to 1,000,000/year including equity. I don't know any non VP level people making anywhere close to that. Obviously this is anecdotal though.

Where? Doing what?

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#102

Post by pyre » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:53 PM UTC

sgt101 wrote: post #50

eitally wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you misunderstood the post your replied to. That poster was talking about employees that have been going above and beyond their current role and taking on many/most of the responsibilities that their "promoted to" role would entail. The promotion is just becomes a recognition of the increased capacity that they are currently taking on.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#103

Post by lgieron » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:55 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #83

ryandrake wrote: post #79

The day I decided to make it a goal to switch from developing software to management: I was sitting at my desk at 8:00 at night fixing some bug and I looked across the sea of gray half-height cubicles at a someone 30 years older than me doing the same thing with the exact same job title, probably not making much more than I. At 95% of companies, there is zero career development and advancement once you become a "Seni…

Worth noting is that it's not just about titles. Titles matter, but they can also become a joke. It's easy to imagine a company, realizing that its best seniors are underpaid, inventing a new title to justify paying them only 10% more instead of the 30% they should get. The bigger problem is that most companies view "engineer" as "implementor of ideas that come from the business". Hence, all that Agile/Scrum bullshit…

> The bigger problem is that most companies view "engineer" as "implementor of ideas that come from the business".

Isn't that the inherent nature of a lot of the programming jobs, though? For example, I'm currently contracting at a e-commerce company. My day to day work is as you described - closing tickets that get assigned to me in the Sprint. I also suggest new tickets, but they're solely limited to technical issues (mostly addressing technical debt, trying out new technologies etc.).

Honestly, I wouldn't know how to suggest anything on the business side - I don't know a first thing about how the market we're in operates (except that it's very competitive), and we have a separate person (Product Manager) whose only job is to think of new features for our team to implement. I think that's the only arrangement that works for non-technical products, which is what vast majority of programmers work on.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#104

Post by branchless » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:55 PM UTC

tamaatar wrote: post #91

ryandrake wrote: post #79

The day I decided to make it a goal to switch from developing software to management: I was sitting at my desk at 8:00 at night fixing some bug and I looked across the sea of gray half-height cubicles at a someone 30 years older than me doing the same thing with the exact same job title, probably not making much more than I. At 95% of companies, there is zero career development and advancement once you become a "Seni…

You are right about the salary. but what is your opinion on job security and employability. the way I see it, in a tech role, as long as your are flexible and open to learning whatever technology is thrown at you, you will always be employable. But in management,especially in junior management and especially in very large organisation, managers are in most cases dead weight. they don't do much.Don't they feel the ins…

Totally agree. A good tech resource is hard to find. The guy who makes you go to a meeting once a week to tell you the floor plan is changing a little? Not so much!

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#105

Post by organsnyder » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:59 PM UTC

tamaatar wrote: post #91

ryandrake wrote: post #79

The day I decided to make it a goal to switch from developing software to management: I was sitting at my desk at 8:00 at night fixing some bug and I looked across the sea of gray half-height cubicles at a someone 30 years older than me doing the same thing with the exact same job title, probably not making much more than I. At 95% of companies, there is zero career development and advancement once you become a "Seni…

You are right about the salary. but what is your opinion on job security and employability. the way I see it, in a tech role, as long as your are flexible and open to learning whatever technology is thrown at you, you will always be employable. But in management,especially in junior management and especially in very large organisation, managers are in most cases dead weight. they don't do much.Don't they feel the ins…

Perceiving a manager—no matter how junior—as simply "dead weight" signals a failure in the organization, the individual manager, and/or your own perception. In addition to ensuring accountability, a good manager also helps to shield subordinates from the bureaucracy that is inevitable in large organizations. This work may not always be visible.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#106

Post by organsnyder » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 3:59 PM UTC

branchless wrote: post #104

tamaatar wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right about the salary. but what is your opinion on job security and employability. the way I see it, in a tech role, as long as your are flexible and open to learning whatever technology is thrown at you, you will always be employable. But in management,especially in junior management and especially in very large organisation, managers are in most cases dead weight. they don't do much.Don't they feel the ins…

Totally agree. A good tech resource is hard to find. The guy who makes you go to a meeting once a week to tell you the floor plan is changing a little? Not so much!

So a good tech resource is harder to find than a bad manager? Hard to argue with that.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#107

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

tamaatar wrote: post #91

ryandrake wrote: post #79

The day I decided to make it a goal to switch from developing software to management: I was sitting at my desk at 8:00 at night fixing some bug and I looked across the sea of gray half-height cubicles at a someone 30 years older than me doing the same thing with the exact same job title, probably not making much more than I. At 95% of companies, there is zero career development and advancement once you become a "Seni…

You are right about the salary. but what is your opinion on job security and employability. the way I see it, in a tech role, as long as your are flexible and open to learning whatever technology is thrown at you, you will always be employable. But in management,especially in junior management and especially in very large organisation, managers are in most cases dead weight. they don't do much.Don't they feel the ins…

Definitely not as many available jobs. Every company in the Valley seems to be looking for engineers by the truckload, but there are not so many openings for [people|project|product] managers. Apparently, engineers now self-organize and products simply leap from their fingertips onto store shelves.

As for job security, I guess I'll find out eventually. My gut feeling is that in software companies, it's easier to get laid off/fired as a manager, and it's the opposite in companies where software/IT plays a peripheral or supporting role.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#108

Post by chriscareycode » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 4:05 PM UTC

"Every time you dissuade a great engineer from becoming a manager, an angel gets its wings." - Roy Rapoport

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#109

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 4:07 PM UTC

tamaatar wrote: post #91

ryandrake wrote: post #79

The day I decided to make it a goal to switch from developing software to management: I was sitting at my desk at 8:00 at night fixing some bug and I looked across the sea of gray half-height cubicles at a someone 30 years older than me doing the same thing with the exact same job title, probably not making much more than I. At 95% of companies, there is zero career development and advancement once you become a "Seni…

You are right about the salary. but what is your opinion on job security and employability. the way I see it, in a tech role, as long as your are flexible and open to learning whatever technology is thrown at you, you will always be employable. But in management,especially in junior management and especially in very large organisation, managers are in most cases dead weight. they don't do much.Don't they feel the ins…

Ah, but the managers are usually the ones that decide who gets fired. If they fire you, you can be back on the job somewhere else in a few weeks. If they fire themselves, what other manager would hire a former manager who even implied that a manager was the least productive employee in the unit? That's crossing the thin green line, man!

Half of a manager's job is justifying the importance of management to the employees, and the other half is justifying their own importance to their superiors.

Let's put it this way. I have never been kept around long enough to see my own manager get fired. And I have been through 3 mergers.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#110

Post by theorique » Tue, Aug 04, 2015, 4:10 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #78

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until engineering decides to do something about it, engineering will always be subordinate to management. There are no true parallel career paths.

Until engineering decides to do something about it, engineering will always be subordinate to management. There are no true parallel career paths. You nailed it. That is all. If we want respect, we have to fucking earn it by forcing businessmen to see us as equals, whatever the effort and cost.

What would "forcing" look like? Typically forcing someone to do something requires power - political, financial, or other.

When engineers have something that managers or investors desperately want (e.g. Zuckerberg et al), then engineers have power. When engineers are interchangeable code-monkeys, then managers and investors have power. Of course, engineers could band together in a labor union to increase their power, but managers and investors don't like that very much, and that generates a cat-herding problem.