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Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path

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Re: Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path

#121

Post by sabujp »

foobarian wrote: post #120
tytso wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely not true. There are IC tracks at many companies. I'm over 50, still doing technical work, and I'm having a lot of fun. I was a STSM (Senior Technical Staff Member) at IBM and I'm now a Senior Staff Engineer at Google. Yes, most senior technical folks don't actually spend much time coding; it's things like technical architecture, creating slide decks for the VP's, meeting customers, etc. That was de…

Are you the /dev/random guy? If so thank you for all the countless times I copied it as skeleton kernel /dev code. :-)

I don't know, did Theodore Tso implement /dev/random? (hint: he's the famous EXT4 guy)

Re: Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path

#122

Post by bsder »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #99
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has been that the value of very senior technical staff is not that they solve "extremely high level" technical problems but they are very easily able to see how what appears to be a complex problem is isomorphic to a much simpler, easy to solve problem. The difference between expert and advanced/intermediate technical staff is that the advanced engineer has an understanding of complex solution and mista…

Would love to hear some examples of experts decreasing complexity and advanced engineers increasing complexity.

Designing a delta-sigma modulator.

Team engineers: we need a high-speed design with advanced adders and someone who can do the difficult static timing analysis.

Expert: No, you need someone who actually understands VLSI design who can interleave time and space in an algorithm. At that point, you can basically use a single step up from stupid-simple ripple carry adders. And if you use non-overlapped clock generators you don't even have to do static timing analysis. The biggest wins are in architecture, not implementation.

Yeah, 33MHz design in 125nm means VLSI like it's 1999.

Re: Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path

#123

Post by mi100hael »

knightofmars wrote: post #74
mi100hael wrote: post #47

The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier does a good job covering the various steps from technical individual contributor all the way up through the ranks of management and looks at questions like when to stop getting involved in technical decision making. Would recommend for anyone interested in pursuing a leadership role.

The Fakespot stats on this book and the critical comments in the Amazon listing don't put this book in the same light as you have. Additionally, the conditions surrounding the exit of Camille Fournier and three other C-level individuals from the company which she was a CTO don't inspire confidence that this is good material with regards to the area it is supposed to cover. "It is a significant exodus in a short time,…

It's good for what it is.

It's not a manual for how to be the world's best boss or build the best culture.

It's an approachable, informative view of what to expect at each rung of the management career ladder. I'd argue it's good because it doesn't take an opinionated stance on the particulars of how to accomplish the outlined roles.

Re: Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path

#124

Post by mkozlows »

wil421 wrote: post #116
dominotw wrote: post #3

This is bad advice. If you are hitting 40's, please do yourself a favor and go into management. Yes coding is fun but, 1. Not being able to change jobs because you can't invert a binary tree in 20 secs in leetcode hazing, is not fun. 2. Being managed by someone a decade younger than you with no family or responsibilities, is not fun. 3. Spending your weekends learning the latest JS framework because you don't want to…

I hear a lot about people having a younger boss but I think that’s more of a HN bubble. Maybe at some startups but the majority of places I’ve worked at or been to have older people as managers and they all have experience. Once time I interviewed at a place with a few managers that were in their late 20s. Turns out they were the senior employees only having been there less than 2 years. Turnover was less than 6 mont…

If you're in your 40s, and there are no managers younger than you, you're in a very unusual organization.

(But if you're bothered by having a manager younger than you, that's on you; I'm not sure what the inherent problem with it is. When I was a manager, I managed people older than me; now that I'm a senior IC, I have leadership younger than me. Both things are fine.)

Re: Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path

#125

Post by kimchidude »

Great article. I’d also like to see some evolution to the classic definition of manager. I’m currently in managerial role that essentially replaces half my time (which could be contributed to specialised tasks) with HR-related errands, ie following up absences, helping people acclimatise themselves to the office, etc etc.

Re: Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path

#126

Post by mrp443 »

IC vs management is a false dichotomy. The goal should be running your own business and this needs (1) knowledge how things work and (2) connections with relevant people. To get knowledge you work on complex projects and making connections with big people is easy when they are small.

Re: Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path

#127

Post by ttldr »

> Sometimes being the voice for change, sometimes being the voice for not change. Always weighing up trade offs, always listening.

[emphasis mine]

i think she makes a really good point here: one that's often overlooked by the "improve"-everything-all-the-time culture that a lot of contemporary tech inveighs.

it's easy to advocate solipsistically for an alternate solution that you came up with. it's harder to objectively weigh the merits of extant design decision and admit that your predecessor made an optimal (or more-optimal-than-you-can-muster) choice and defend it. iconoclasts may occasionally create great things independently (perhaps if they're a Linus Torvalds or a Margaret Hamilton), but the meat and potatoes of building functional and robust software is building well on solid foundations, specifically by respecting those foundations when they're sound.

Re: Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path

#129

Post by wil421 »

mkozlows wrote: post #124
wil421 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear a lot about people having a younger boss but I think that’s more of a HN bubble. Maybe at some startups but the majority of places I’ve worked at or been to have older people as managers and they all have experience. Once time I interviewed at a place with a few managers that were in their late 20s. Turns out they were the senior employees only having been there less than 2 years. Turnover was less than 6 mont…

If you're in your 40s, and there are no managers younger than you, you're in a very unusual organization. (But if you're bothered by having a manager younger than you, that's on you; I'm not sure what the inherent problem with it is. When I was a manager, I managed people older than me; now that I'm a senior IC, I have leadership younger than me. Both things are fine.)

OP said if you’re in your 40s and being managed by someone a decade younger than you. That would mean 30s. At my last job there was one manager in his early 30s (promoted at a small company and then switched). At my current org there aren’t any managers in their 30s but there’s more levels. I’m feel comfortable here because my current managers were ex SEs.

Re: Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path

#130

Post by shrubble »

I think that this is relevant...

'When I was on TV (Computer Chronicles) in early 1987 showing our product Trapeze the other presenter was Mike Slade who was product manager of Excel. At the time young me thought him some random marketing weenie (young people can be pretty stupid). Yet he started all these companies later including ESPN, worked for Apple in various leadership roles, was a good friend of Steve Jobs and started his own VC firm'

http://thecodist.com/article/my-biggest-regret-as-a-programm...

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