21–30 of 332 posts
- I know I'm not technically skilled enough to make it to the higher levels of IC
- I know I lack the people skills & charisma to make it to the higher levels of management
I'm aware I can improve in both and I accept that, to some extent, it's a laziness and confidence issue. But to some people it seems to come naturally and it's hard not to assume I'm in the majority that aren't exceptional.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It felt great at first. Once you realize that the company - respected/known as a place that does the right thing - doesn't follow its own policies and screws people over, you realize that every company/job sucks. It won't be better anywhere else. And you wasted your youth on obscure and obsolete tech because the company needed it and you wrongly believed their promises that they would take care of you (retraining, ca…
My experience is totally different. The company I've worked for for the last 20 years has always done the right thing by me. They allowed me to work from my home country for half a year when I needed to be with my family, they paid to move me to yet another country when my team was made redundant so I could do the job I really wanted. And I really love learning obscure tech :) always have. Some companies really are b…
I do think some companies are better than others, but I don't think any company is really good. They all lie. My company has a reputation for being great and caring. On paper it's true. For over 90% of people, that might be true. But they don't follow their own policies, screwing over a small percentage. So I think if you don't fall into that small percentage, then you just don't see it.
For example, my company says they don't compare people except for the highest rating. So you have to meet the "standards" (which are poorly defined btw). I know departments in the company where if you gave someone the highest rating, then you have to "pick" someone for a low rating.
Even if you love what you do and you don't want to change anything, the world around you is going to have other ideas. Especially in tech.
> I think there are three main kinds of career destination, at least in the tech industry: > Independent > Senior individual contributor (IC) > Management Sales is an obvious omission.
wouldn't sales be a form of IC ?
To me, this reveals an uncomfortable truth: - I know I'm not technically skilled enough to make it to the higher levels of IC - I know I lack the people skills & charisma to make it to the higher levels of management I'm aware I can improve in both and I accept that, to some extent, it's a laziness and confidence issue. But to some people it seems to come naturally and it's hard not to assume I'm in the majority that…
The trick (and of course there is a trick) is to find a narrow enough niche that you would enjoy working in, where you can get paid well, but isn't so narrow that you have very limited choices regarding who to work for.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies lie and don't even follow their own policies, screwing over the workers (you could also apply this to the "justice" system, and many others). A good start would be a union to enforce the policies consistently and right the imbalance of power. I have an LLC for largely non-tech work. Tech work is terrible in my market, so I don't think I'd do well enough to support myself. Not to mention, the tech I spent ti…
How about a tech LLC? I didn’t get a picture of what the policies and imbalance of power is, or what it should be. I’ve seen some companies lie in varying amounts that don’t always add up to broken. What’s actually broken from your perspective? Does broken mean they’re not paying you? Or does it mean you aren’t getting promoted? Does it mean the software they produce doesn’t work, or the company doesn’t make any mone…
A tech LLC won't help. The area is terrible for tech work and my expertise was in stuff that's irrelevant.
Feels like the "senior IC" role described in this article corresponds mainly to today's "3-5 years of experience 'senior' engineer" roles. The reality that I've seen and experienced is that advancing beyond that on an IC track means a lot more people/political work, rather than constant "hands on keyboard" coding as described in the article. It's not the same as management, but it's inevitably more meetings and evang…
Feels like the "senior IC" role described in this article corresponds mainly to today's "3-5 years of experience 'senior' engineer" roles. The reality that I've seen and experienced is that advancing beyond that on an IC track means a lot more people/political work, rather than constant "hands on keyboard" coding as described in the article. It's not the same as management, but it's inevitably more meetings and evang…
At some point you cannot become more productive as an individual and you need to start coordinating the work of many people if you want to increase your productivity.
This can of course take many forms, but the essence is inescapable.