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Don't become an engineering manager
51–60 of 281 posts
Re: Don't become an engineering manager
#52I don't get this argument: don't do it, you have better otptions, but it is good for me because i enjoy it.
This article periodically surfaces in some shape or form. There's this idea that there's a "dual ladder", and the IC ladder offers just as much respect and compensation as the management one. This is a lie, and the sooner we stop telling it to the young generation - the better.
Human societies have always rewarded and valued those who built hierarchies more than those who built things. If you focus on building a thing - you will forever be a cog in someone's big project. There's a reason that management ladder is more competitive.
Re: Don't become an engineering manager
#53The arguments: * It's a bad time to move away from tech As a manager your role isn't to be the "best technical person" anyway. You still need to understand fast-changing capabilities of course. But you are managing people now, and the required skills are different. See below. * The ladder is very competitive It's always competitive, and in my experience it was the exact opposite - there were far fewer VP-level techni…
I think you underestimate the job mobility that is lost when you transition from being an individual contributor into someone on the management track.
The reality is, there are very few EM and above jobs, and job security is tough - if I have to choose between firing an EM or a SWE, I'd fire the EM first because I can always find another replacement or split their responsibilities across multiple individual contributors and the PM.
If an EM is laid off or fired, it's extremely difficult to find another role, and it truly is a terminal position. Why would I hire a laid off or fired EM or Director when I can promote internally or hire someone from within my network?
Additionally, back when I was an SE, if we had a deal go bad in order to protect our ass we'd blame the EM so that we can have a head on the platter to hand our CRO, unlike a seasoned SWE who can push back and argue PM requirements were unclear and PM can argue that sales+product was aligned.
Re: Don't become an engineering manager
#54The arguments: * It's a bad time to move away from tech As a manager your role isn't to be the "best technical person" anyway. You still need to understand fast-changing capabilities of course. But you are managing people now, and the required skills are different. See below. * The ladder is very competitive It's always competitive, and in my experience it was the exact opposite - there were far fewer VP-level techni…
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Re: Don't become an engineering manager
#55The document is comparing salaries of staff engineers, and EM's. In my experience staff engineer positions are even rarer then EM positions.
> In my experience staff engineer positions are even rarer then EM positions.
Where do you work?!? If you are in Western Europe then the blogpost is irrelevant for you. The Western European market is weird.
Re: Don't become an engineering manager
#56I don't get this argument: don't do it, you have better otptions, but it is good for me because i enjoy it.
This article periodically surfaces in some shape or form. There's this idea that there's a "dual ladder", and the IC ladder offers just as much respect and compensation as the management one. This is a lie, and the sooner we stop telling it to the young generation - the better. Human societies have always rewarded and valued those who built hierarchies more than those who built things. If you focus on building a thin…
> There's this idea that there's a "dual ladder", and the IC ladder offers just as much respect and compensation as the management one
It is not a lie. It is true IF you live and work in the Bay Area, Seattle, and TLV - which represent the bulk of tech industry employment.
Companies where the underlying stack is a revenue generator and not a cost center are companies where these kinds of dual tracks exist, but these are only found in the major tech hubs and are not available if you are remote first.
They also require you to be both technically and socially adept.
Re: Don't become an engineering manager
#57It's curious to see the rational argument against the emotional choice the author makes.
The critical piece here is the anecdotal (but true) insight that engineering orgs have been flattening over the last few years.
There are a lot of factors, but rarely discussed is the realization that senior engineers are completely capable and often willing of managing other engineers directly. The definitive text on this subject is literally called "Herding Cats" :facepalm:
In reality, senior engineers often have strong communication skills (albeit different than the styles of other management and leadership positions), very good time management, and likely can perform many of these 'soft skills' that engineering management is doing out-of-band from the teams directly responsible for shipping software.
The engineering manager role feels like it was borne out of a very west-coast ideology from another era responsible for removing agency from people based on dated stereotypes. There was a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein we said engineers aren't capable or willing to have agency to work across teams, manage resources, or communicate about career goals or blockers, and then plugged someone in the middle to take these activities away from engineers.
I'm exposed to a lot of teams with high-aptitude/techincal people that are not software engineers and almost never do you do see the equivalent of a traditional software engineering manager.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a continued and dramatic compression of these roles going forward.
Re: Don't become an engineering manager
#58> It’s a bad time to move away from tech It continues to amaze me that becoming a manager of anything should mean moving away from it. The manager has to move away from the detail, but why should they move from the substance of the role. A legal partner has to stay up to date as much their staff, in fact a legal partner is often the only one who can answer complex questions. When I need complex advice on my statutory…
The best managers can still do the work part, that much is obvious. Not necessarily being the best in the team but offering the best project-level advice because the manager has enough skill combined with being the only one in the team dedicating thinking cycles "to the whole picture". But that only works well if you have the buy-in skill level that needs to be kept sharp.
Re: Don't become an engineering manager
#59I cannot be alone in feeling that titles (within "tech" in particular) are almost completely arbitrary? What constitutes a "senior", "lead", "principal" and "staff" X, respectively, has so much overlap that it really depends on the organisation. I myself have been called all of those things, but have honestly not been able to tell the difference: in some cases, I have had much more responsibility as a "senior backend…
Titles for ICs matter for two reasons: comp, and perf reviews. At bigger companies the amount of RSUs for Staff versus Senior can be substantial. At a startup where equity is worth nothing and salaries are in a tight band anyways it doesn't make a difference. For perf reviews your title dictates the rubric you get evaluated against, but in fact your manager is probably trying to fit a curve and then work backwards to…
They matter within a company for the reasons you cite. They mostly don't matter between companies however.
Re: Don't become an engineering manager
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Titles for ICs matter for two reasons: comp, and perf reviews. At bigger companies the amount of RSUs for Staff versus Senior can be substantial. At a startup where equity is worth nothing and salaries are in a tight band anyways it doesn't make a difference. For perf reviews your title dictates the rubric you get evaluated against, but in fact your manager is probably trying to fit a curve and then work backwards to…
They matter within a company for the reasons you cite. They mostly don't matter between companies however.
Why do you think that? Senior, staff, principle levels are pretty standard across the industry, even if some companies call them different things