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Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)

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Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)

#21

Post by questionableans »

jackblemming wrote: post #7

The subtle disdain I hear from these types of super elite principal distinguished architects about actually writing code amuses me. Of course actually writing code is far too lowly of an activity, they’re more of an “ideas guy”. Fred Brooks had a good laugh about these types decades ago.

It’s not necessarily disdain, it’s the fact that writing code is necessary but not sufficient to make a successful software project. To have the most positive impact, sometimes you have to focus on the parts that everyone else finds difficult or uninteresting, yet are still important.

Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)

#23

Post by trashtensor »

taneq wrote: post #19
light_hue_1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In short, you manage people. You tell others what to do and you think about what to do. As a principal scientist I definitely don't manage people. Mainly, people managers have power to tell people what to do and when. I have zero power over anyone. No one needs to listen to me. Ever. If people ignore me there's literally no one I can complain to. And no one tells me what to do. If I wasn't competent at my job I'd b…

How do you get a role like this (even with the 10 year head start) without owning the organisation? Very few places I’ve worked have the kind of long-horizon pragmatism to invest in this kind of role.

Big companies tend to have Staff/Principal/Distinguished type roles. Usually those roles give you a lot of independence. But that independence means you need to be able to find projects to do and advocate for them and get them staffed and planned and executed and out to production. Often those projects can span many teams and multiple organizations, depending on how the company is structured. So I suppose the most valuable skill is being able to earn the trust of the managers so that you're able to even get them to listen to you so your stuff ends up on their roadmap.

so i do sympathize with a lot of the negative sentiments about the role here in this thread, and i think that in general there is a lot of navel gazing about the staff+ tech ic roles, there is an actual place for them as tech leads of large projects.

Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)

#24

Post by YuukiRey »

I find it a bit strange when people write about themselves in third person on their own website (see footer and about).

Anyway, the article seems very Amazon centric since I have no idea what an L6 or an L7 is. I get that they’re career ladder steps but that’s it.

And having testimonials about yourself on your own website…

The whole website feels like I clicked on an Ad for a person.

Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)

#25

Post by questionableans »

taneq wrote: post #19
light_hue_1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In short, you manage people. You tell others what to do and you think about what to do. As a principal scientist I definitely don't manage people. Mainly, people managers have power to tell people what to do and when. I have zero power over anyone. No one needs to listen to me. Ever. If people ignore me there's literally no one I can complain to. And no one tells me what to do. If I wasn't competent at my job I'd b…

How do you get a role like this (even with the 10 year head start) without owning the organisation? Very few places I’ve worked have the kind of long-horizon pragmatism to invest in this kind of role.

One way to gather the skill set is to rotate through and master different aspects of the role. First become really solid at the technical fundamentals. Then volunteer to spend some time focusing on complementary skills like project and product management (in very technical areas, where you couldn’t just hire a nontechnical person in one of those job families). Start looking out for the problems worth solving that take multiple technical experts to accomplish, and make the solution great. Maybe be a manager for a while. Understand how to make your managers for at least a couple of levels up better in some ways, and help them with that. You will become someone trusted to get the right things done well. When it comes time to find the next job, focus on carefully vetting opportunities and interviewing prospective employers at least as much as they do when hiring, to find that opportunity you can be truly great at.

Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)

#26

Post by procaryote »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #2

In short, you manage people. You tell others what to do and you think about what to do. It's technical management. You create impact off the work of others. You tell 10x people to do 10x work and you get 10x the credit when management only is like 1x of talent and effort. I met a principle engineer who didn't know what a database transaction was and it still fits every description on this site. We shouldn't call thes…

Some companies suck at promoting the right people, but a good principal engineer is the 10x person, or someone who makes several teams more effective by helping them figure out the bigger technical issues.

If you think management is like 1x talent and effort, you should try management for a bit.

Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)

#27

Post by nadam »

I find it amusing how people take this 'leveling game' at big companies so seriously. The title they get at these companies become their identity. They live by the rules the company imposes on them. Amusingly almost the opposite of independent thinking, which they are so proud of. What I found during my career is that some people blossom at these big companies, and some, with equal talent cannot really realize themselves, while they blossom at other organizations, perhaps in startups, or just at more interesting problems. What some people do not realize is that this aspect that as you level at these companies 'you get the big picture more and more' is not really true in a lot of cases. Efficiency and big picture thinking is almost orthogonal. Efficiency is context dependent, high level thinking is less so. I have seen people getting the big picture on things even at low levels or even considered a junior, while people on high levels suprisingly small minded. Higher level at these organizations means that you are more productive in the given field, given organization, for some reason, this can be because of good political skills, because you work your ass off, or because you have a very efficient brain, but it does not necessarily mean that you have better high level vision, or taste or maturity even. Sometimes it is almost laughable how these people who treat these leveling system seriously and get to a relatively high level treat young colleagues. They are almost naive about how young people think. They think that L3 juniors cannot do anything alone. While I see even young kids playing with suprising autonomy if they are thinking in the right problem space.

True role models of mine never were/are L3, L4, L5, etc... They were/are awesome engineers or scientist from the get go. (Like the Johns: The von NEumann and the Carmack.) Experience lets you get better and better, but if you are stuck at a role or organization, the problem might be that you need to find something that you are more passionate about and not necessarily that you are low level because your thinking is not 'independent enough' or you are not 'high-level enough'. At least that is my experience.

Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)

#28

Post by procaryote »

taneq wrote: post #19
light_hue_1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In short, you manage people. You tell others what to do and you think about what to do. As a principal scientist I definitely don't manage people. Mainly, people managers have power to tell people what to do and when. I have zero power over anyone. No one needs to listen to me. Ever. If people ignore me there's literally no one I can complain to. And no one tells me what to do. If I wasn't competent at my job I'd b…

How do you get a role like this (even with the 10 year head start) without owning the organisation? Very few places I’ve worked have the kind of long-horizon pragmatism to invest in this kind of role.

If you have the skill and you're in a smaller company, you can just keep doing the role and the org will adapt to use you in it

If you have the skill and you're in a larger company they may already have a structure around it you can apply. Otherwise you should talk your manager into trying it, or you should find a new job in an org that does have this kind of role

If you don't have the skill, you should get the skill first, by making your team more effective, then make your team and all related teams more effective together

Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)

#29

Post by neilv »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #9
ninetyninenine wrote: post #2

In short, you manage people. You tell others what to do and you think about what to do. It's technical management. You create impact off the work of others. You tell 10x people to do 10x work and you get 10x the credit when management only is like 1x of talent and effort. I met a principle engineer who didn't know what a database transaction was and it still fits every description on this site. We shouldn't call thes…

> In short, you manage people. You tell others what to do and you think about what to do. As a principal scientist I definitely don't manage people. Mainly, people managers have power to tell people what to do and when. I have zero power over anyone. No one needs to listen to me. Ever. If people ignore me there's literally no one I can complain to. And no one tells me what to do. If I wasn't competent at my job I'd b…

This is much like real Principal Engineer roles I've seen.

The skeptics of the role might not have seen how easily and badly a large multiple-team effort can go astray, and the value of someone spotting the problems, and making sure they get addressed, before the product line or company is ruined.

Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)

#30

Post by imiric »

> Nothing is not your job.

Yeah, screw that.

These roles with fancy titles may come with astronomical compensation for an engineer—and rightfully so—but they're essentially buying your soul. You're not an executive, and are still below them on the political and compensation ladder, but you'll easily have 10x more on your plate than an executive. You'll be expected to act as a lap dog for the company for anything tech-related, while you probably will only enjoy 10% of that work. Your guidance will only be appreciated when the stock goes up, while you'll be the first to be held responsible for any technical screw ups.

So, nah. I'd rather continue to enjoy my work, maintain my freedom and peace of mind, and still get paid well enough as a perpetual "senior".

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