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A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

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Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#181

Post by michaelochurch »

nostrademons wrote: post #178
michaelochurch wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a manager does either - Google will be dead before they can climb the hierarchy. You think so? Why do you think Google will be dead in the next few years? I'd bet on it being around, in some form, even 50 years from now. A halfway competent manager at Google will make Director in 5 years and VP in 10. That might be, in part, because Google has so few competent managers that a "5" or a "6" is a local 9.7…

I don't think Google will be dead in the next few years. I think it will be dead in about 15-20 (because that is the typical lifespan of a tech company - witness Sun, SGI, DEC, Apple if Steve Jobs had not returned, Compaq, Microsoft, and many others). I also think that the average manager at Google will never reach Director, and indeed a SWE3 has a better chance of making Distinguished Engineer than a manager does of…

The false assumption is that you need to have 100 people under you to be a Director. It's a title, not an organizational role.

Managers benefit from a seniority system at places like Google because you get automatic level bumps after so long. Sure, the ladder will get longer at the top (there will be VPs and SVPs and EVPs and SEVPs and CVPs) as they have to invent new levels up there, but the fact is that it's just much easier for you if you're a Google manager with guaranteed promotions for average performance, as opposed to an engineer who has to do something special to get Principal+.

You could be right, though. Google may have to do an honest layoff (as opposed to the dishonest stack-ranking/PIP bullshit which is a layoff masked as a "low-performer initiative") and, when that happens, a lot of managers are going to find themselves on severance packages. The ones who manage to hold on will still be getting the guaranteed title bump every 2-3 years, unlike engineers to whom no guarantee is made, but it won't be the same, and being a manager at Google won't be the cushy, write-your-own-performance-reviews job that it historically has been. The churn will free up positions, but the game will (as you noted) feel more zero-sum than it is when it's expansion that creates them.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#182

Post by [deleted] »

michaelochurch wrote: post #181
nostrademons wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Google will be dead in the next few years. I think it will be dead in about 15-20 (because that is the typical lifespan of a tech company - witness Sun, SGI, DEC, Apple if Steve Jobs had not returned, Compaq, Microsoft, and many others). I also think that the average manager at Google will never reach Director, and indeed a SWE3 has a better chance of making Distinguished Engineer than a manager does of…

The false assumption is that you need to have 100 people under you to be a Director. It's a title, not an organizational role. Managers benefit from a seniority system at places like Google because you get automatic level bumps after so long. Sure, the ladder will get longer at the top (there will be VPs and SVPs and EVPs and SEVPs and CVPs) as they have to invent new levels up there, but the fact is that it's just m…

[deleted]

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#183

Post by thecage411 »

nostrademons wrote: post #178
michaelochurch wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a manager does either - Google will be dead before they can climb the hierarchy. You think so? Why do you think Google will be dead in the next few years? I'd bet on it being around, in some form, even 50 years from now. A halfway competent manager at Google will make Director in 5 years and VP in 10. That might be, in part, because Google has so few competent managers that a "5" or a "6" is a local 9.7…

I don't think Google will be dead in the next few years. I think it will be dead in about 15-20 (because that is the typical lifespan of a tech company - witness Sun, SGI, DEC, Apple if Steve Jobs had not returned, Compaq, Microsoft, and many others). I also think that the average manager at Google will never reach Director, and indeed a SWE3 has a better chance of making Distinguished Engineer than a manager does of…

I'm not sure you have demonstrated what you are trying to show.

If I understand correctly, you've calculated the chance a manager is promoted to director as 1/15 * average number of directors that leave over the relevant time period.

But you haven't made any argument about the chance an engineer is promoted to distinguished engineer besides stating promotion non rivalrous. A system in which no one is promoted to distinguished engineer is non rivalrous, for example.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#184

Post by [deleted] »

thecage411 wrote: post #183
nostrademons wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Google will be dead in the next few years. I think it will be dead in about 15-20 (because that is the typical lifespan of a tech company - witness Sun, SGI, DEC, Apple if Steve Jobs had not returned, Compaq, Microsoft, and many others). I also think that the average manager at Google will never reach Director, and indeed a SWE3 has a better chance of making Distinguished Engineer than a manager does of…

I'm not sure you have demonstrated what you are trying to show. If I understand correctly, you've calculated the chance a manager is promoted to director as 1/15 * average number of directors that leave over the relevant time period. But you haven't made any argument about the chance an engineer is promoted to distinguished engineer besides stating promotion non rivalrous. A system in which no one is promoted to dist…

[deleted]

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#185

Post by anotherdatem »

jacalata wrote: post #77
anotherdatem wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a VP at a mid-sized ($100mm revenue) startup. I report to the CTO, and am his probable successor. I make slightly less than our highest paid engineer. I would recommend finding a company with a true parallel track, rather than dedicating yourself to a job that you don't want, and thus likely won't ever be great at.

How many VPs are there, and how many engineers at his pay grade? As in, if a junior engineer at your company is looking at their future, are there five times as many chances to become a VP as to become a highly paid tech superstar?

Advancing as an engineer is probably easier for the ambitious because there's not a fixed number of senior technical staff. If a technical contributor levels up their game, they can nearly immediately level up their pay.

The management track doesn't work that way; we need to level up our games, and then wait for an opportunity to arise due to corporate growth or turnover. For example, I'm getting coached to take over the CTO slot, but there's no reason to believe that I'll ever get the opportunity, because there's no reason to believe the existing CTO will ever give up their job.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#186

Post by biot »

carc wrote: post #140
__abc wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where? Doing what?

Well known, top tier tech companies. I won't get into more than that they're senior engineers (partially because I don't know that I can answer that with more specificity). They all have 10+ years of experience and are typically tech leads on their teams.

Can you elaborate on the kinds of work they do? I can't see a senior engineer doing iOS/Android development making that kind of coin, but I can see it for someone who has been working in-depth building out datacenter technology or low-level mobile technology stacks, for example.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#188

Post by ci5er »

maxxxxx wrote: post #73
anotherdatem wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a VP at a mid-sized ($100mm revenue) startup. I report to the CTO, and am his probable successor. I make slightly less than our highest paid engineer. I would recommend finding a company with a true parallel track, rather than dedicating yourself to a job that you don't want, and thus likely won't ever be great at.

What industry is that? In companies I have seen it's a matter of principle that an engineer can't make as much money as managers. They would lay off the best engineer in the world before giving him as much money as they make.

I was the founding CTO of a company that did ~$100M in sales it's last year. My top engineers made more in salary than I did. And our top sales people out-earned the CEO and all his staff's take home pay by a quite a bit (except, occasionally the VP of Sales). Which the CEO had no problem with, whatsoever.

If it matters, it was a company that sold software primarily to large banks globally.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#189

Post by michaelochurch »

toby wrote: post #136
toby wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure I'll get this wrong, but the way it was explained to me is that you need to appear in 3 SAG productions in order to apply for membership. Since it's a big hassle for the movie production to get an exemption to hire non-union, you need to be special in some way (the director really wants you in particular, you have some special skill like dance, etc.). It helps to know other actors who will call you and say "…

I'm also not sure how you'd bootstrap something like this for programmers. The reason it works for actors is that every actor who is even slightly famous is a member, so every production has to work with the union or only get completely random people (you're still allowed to make an indie film with your friends if none of them are members).

I think the selectivity problem is less of one for programmers than screen actors. We can use code tests or Github for membership screening. Thus, we don't create the chicken-egg problem where (a) it's almost impossible to prove yourself if you're not part of the union while (b) you have to prove yourself before you can join.

Getting broad-based membership is much harder. This is an industry full of (a) young people who think they'll have investor contact in 6 months and be founders in two years and retired in six, and (b) indentured servants on H1-Bs. Even if we get 95% of the top 50% of programmers (and that's wildly optimistic) as members, most managers will just ignore their need for talent, in that case, and hire bottom-rung engineers, preferring that over being responsible for bringing in a union. It (that is, hiring bad engineers to avoid bringing in represented ones) won't work, but it won't hurt those managers' careers personally, so nothing will be done about it.

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