181–190 of 208 posts
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Also there is a comment by Major Winters that this is a stupid rule, because Lipton is one of the best and most respected platoon leads in the company.
True, Winters indeed said that but the interesting question is why would the Army have such a policy in the first place (I assume that here as in other things BoB sticks to the realities of the time).
A bad EM can do so much more damage than a bad IC. I don't think that's talked about enough. In my now very long career I've had 1 great manager, a few good/decent ones, and a lot of lousy ones. The lousy ones just make the job so much harder and sometimes outright miserable. A bad EM coupled with junior ICs can be particularly bad combo. At least as I got older I came to realize I can work with bad managers and help…
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Senior engineer is fairly low. At some point you may get tired of stagnating salary and being told what to do all the time. They are higher technical positions that have no or very little management responsibilities (up to senior principal engineer, architect, etc). It depends also on the company and how much they value you. Best I have seen is engineer with PhD and decades of experience be the research/architecture…
>Best I have seen is engineer with phD and decades of experience be the research/architecture guru, no team, no direct reports While we're at it, does anyone recommend going for PhD in EECS fields for someone who doesn't like at all to be in academia or do "research" (aka read pdfs, write proposal/papers, code up and run simulations)?
Feels like you're answering your own question. No.
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Netflix would disagree.
Netflix is indeed an outlier and has always paid higher than the rest of the market since it's such a shitty toxic place to work and in a terrible location to boot. Even they aren't hiring someone looking at L5 at one of the other big companies at 600k. They'll be much higher than the other companies though.
I’m a senior dev currently interviewing for a team lead position at a startup. While I consider myself highly technical, the things that frustrate me the most day-to-day are teamwork related. Lack of trust. Teammates who don’t want to talk to each other. Other seniors getting away with subpar work. Lack of clear team purpose and product vision. Lack of buy in on common engineering practices. As a people manager these…
Man, people have a hard time talking to each other indeed. I might have to resort to some silly kindergarten games to make that happen
I have been a manager four times, twice at FAANGs. I disagree with a lot that the author says: - The ladder isn’t really taller. Most EMs end up clustered at the equivalent of L6/staff engineer. Promotions to senior manager and beyond are situational and rare. Meanwhile, my peers on the engineering ladder get promoted when ready, without needing to wait for the stars to align. (I made it to senior manager, but I was…
I suspect people view these senior leaders are irreplaceably important and tolerate all sorts of terrible/pathological behaviors from them...
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A manager does build things! It’s just that their tools are engineers :)
I already have daydreams about doing carpeting, as that would be something I'd actually do with my bare hands, so being a manager is 1 level even further removed from doing something with your hands. Manager building things is like saying politicians build countries. Technically not wrong, but not the kind of building I'm interested in doing.
I’m a problem solver and big picture thinker. I like working out the solution and helping solve the obstacles. The role that has always fit the best is “architect”, but it seems to be going away as a title. No matter, the need for the work remains. But I’ve done a few of the other roles over the years. Team Lead/manager, Scrum Master, Product Manager (without the title). Here’s my take. A good manager requires a very…
> A good manager requires a very different skill set to an engineer. The primary skill is to have extremely low neuroticism. The ability to make good decisions and present a calm and rational exterior under prolonged stress. This is one of the best summaries I have seen. It is also why it feels so similar to parenting: a good manager needs the ability to be the grown-up. This usually involves unfun things like callin…
You might be overly hard on yourself here. Everything is a spectrum. My usual failure mode seems to be excessive patience when folks aren’t delivering. It is extremely bad when you let it fester. Lots of stuff doesn’t matter, but when important things aren’t happening, you really need to jump on it fast and insist on the high bar.
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> I think digging into the roots of SWE's not being respected is worth discussing. Are doctors, lawyers, or surgeons viewed the same way? Those are three very different things with different growth paths. But as someone who went from engineer to entrepreneur and is now on the product side, I can say that software people, almost as a rule, focus on stuff that doesn't matter for promotion. It's really frustrating somet…
Do you really respect doctors for growing their business? I would look down at a doctor whose mind is on money. When I really need a doctor, I sure do look for the best, not the one with the most patients.
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Do you really respect doctors for growing their business? I would look down at a doctor whose mind is on money. When I really need a doctor, I sure do look for the best, not the one with the most patients.
your opinion of doctors is probably off. i'm married to a doctor (in the US) and i would say 4/5 doctors i meet spend most of their time talking and thinking about money. there are lots of reasons for this (some valid), but assume your doctor has money on the mind