Why Senior Engineers Should Stay ICs • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Senior Engineers Should Stay ICs

#11

Post by francisofascii » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 9:37 PM UTC

prerok wrote: post #10

tgma wrote: post #2

Counter opinion: if you want to advance in your career, always opt for management roles when given an option, even if you feel you don't love the shitwork that comes with it. Management is more versatile, more leveraged, and always has a seat at the table, whereas senior IC's power is serving at the peril of some manager. I would argue the most senior ICs that actually are successful are also managers who are afforde…

Counter: I was once promoted to a management role and I hated it. I kept it up for a year and then went back to dev in another company. Not all people want to be in meaningless meetings, shuffling people around and dealing with their personal/career growth, dealing with project plannings and Gantt charts, preparing presentations for upper management, etc. /rant :)

I think this is the right approach. Give management an honest try, but if your life is miserable or not enjoyable, become a dev again.

Re: Why Senior Engineers Should Stay ICs

#12

Post by betaby » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 9:38 PM UTC

Ancalagon wrote: post #5

tgma wrote: post #2

Counter opinion: if you want to advance in your career, always opt for management roles when given an option, even if you feel you don't love the shitwork that comes with it. Management is more versatile, more leveraged, and always has a seat at the table, whereas senior IC's power is serving at the peril of some manager. I would argue the most senior ICs that actually are successful are also managers who are afforde…

counter counter point: Meta, Amazon, and other tech co's have considerably flattened their orgs in recent years

Those are clearly the exceptions.

Re: Why Senior Engineers Should Stay ICs

#13

Post by dangus » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 10:07 PM UTC

I'm looking for this proof of meaningful career growth.

Nowhere in the article does it mention how growth materializes. It seems like if you do this you'll just continue to be a senior engineer forever.

You have to find a way to get yourself into strategic leadership and step away from coding to move up to those higher levels.

In this world, there are doers and dinguses. If you're still doing, the dinguses who manage you don't want you to stop doing.

Re: Why Senior Engineers Should Stay ICs

#14

Post by swasheck » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 10:37 PM UTC

i’m conflicted on this one. i’ve actively resisted management roles (except once where i was expected to be both primary IC and team lead) in favor of increasing both breadth and depth of IC expertise. i’m consistently top tier of my teams due to much this.

however, when it comes time to find a new place i find i’m overlooked because im older than most IC, don’t have the requisite experience for management (usually an ATS weed out), or my salary is above most “normal” IC bands. so now i regret not adding more management experience to my CV

Re: Why Senior Engineers Should Stay ICs

#15

Post by timr » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

tgma wrote: post #2

Counter opinion: if you want to advance in your career, always opt for management roles when given an option, even if you feel you don't love the shitwork that comes with it. Management is more versatile, more leveraged, and always has a seat at the table, whereas senior IC's power is serving at the peril of some manager. I would argue the most senior ICs that actually are successful are also managers who are afforde…

It's a completely different world, and some people aren't made for it. Among other things, the politics of management positions is often pretty intense, and not something that engineering-oriented people find fulfilling.

Re: Why Senior Engineers Should Stay ICs

#16

Post by scarface_74 » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 10:57 PM UTC

swasheck wrote: post #14

i’m conflicted on this one. i’ve actively resisted management roles (except once where i was expected to be both primary IC and team lead) in favor of increasing both breadth and depth of IC expertise. i’m consistently top tier of my teams due to much this. however, when it comes time to find a new place i find i’m overlooked because im older than most IC, don’t have the requisite experience for management (usually a…

I saw the writing on the wall a decade ago and moved into cloud consulting. I’m 50 now.

In 2016, I was a senior engineer on two projects—one involving hiring contractors and another leading a legacy transformation with a small team. I preferred the latter.

Next, I joined a startup, gained hands-on AWS experience, led AWS initiatives across teams, and focused on POCs/MVPs, actively avoiding team lead roles.

Then, I landed at AWS Professional Services as a mid-level consultant, leading smaller projects or workstreams in larger ones.

After leaving, I had a choice: a strategy role overseeing acquisitions or a staff software architect position at a consulting firm. I chose the latter.

Now, I either work with customers to define requirements and project plans (acting as a solution architect) or lead multiple workstreams, coordinating architects, sales, customers, and project management.

Re: Why Senior Engineers Should Stay ICs

#17

Post by scarface_74 » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 11:02 PM UTC

tgma wrote: post #2

Counter opinion: if you want to advance in your career, always opt for management roles when given an option, even if you feel you don't love the shitwork that comes with it. Management is more versatile, more leveraged, and always has a seat at the table, whereas senior IC's power is serving at the peril of some manager. I would argue the most senior ICs that actually are successful are also managers who are afforde…

A low level manager really doesn’t have any more influence than a staff architect and often less. In the role I rejected that I spoke about in another reply and the role I accepted, the staff level IC is at the same level in the org as the engineering manager and we both report to a director.

In my current niche - cloud consulting - I can be over a project dealing with software development, cloud architecture, data analytics, migrations, cloud hosted call centers, etc.

Just like an engineering manager, I don’t have to be the best at each role. I just need to be comfortable working at that level of “scope”, “impact” and “ambiguity”.

Re: Why Senior Engineers Should Stay ICs

#18

Post by GianFabien » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 11:25 PM UTC

I think that the advice needs to consider company, society culture and even family dynamics. We don't live in a bubble where we can make decisions entirely based upon our personal preferences.

In my experience (Sydney, Autralia) being a competent and productive IC in an organisation has limits. An alternative is to become a contractor and build up a reputation for delivering quality results on time and budget. You can easily out earn the managers and garner respect. However, the longer you stay with a client the more you get sucked into the meetings and politics.

The downside of contracting is that you need to continually evolve and technologically skate to where the puck will be. Doing so requires one to be clued into emerging fads as seen from the clients' perspective not your nerd's view.

Re: Why Senior Engineers Should Stay ICs

#19

Post by tgma » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:54 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #15

tgma wrote: post #2

Counter opinion: if you want to advance in your career, always opt for management roles when given an option, even if you feel you don't love the shitwork that comes with it. Management is more versatile, more leveraged, and always has a seat at the table, whereas senior IC's power is serving at the peril of some manager. I would argue the most senior ICs that actually are successful are also managers who are afforde…

It's a completely different world, and some people aren't made for it. Among other things, the politics of management positions is often pretty intense, and not something that engineering-oriented people find fulfilling.

ICs like to think they don't have to deal with politics. It is only an illusion that sometimes is true because their manager happen to protect them from those (double-edged sword: hurts visibility) and if they are lucky their interests are aligned with the boss. ICs often have a worse hand in politics because they have to fly blind in the politics world and operate with less information and visibility.

Re: Why Senior Engineers Should Stay ICs

#20

Post by tgma » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:56 AM UTC

Ancalagon wrote: post #5

tgma wrote: post #2

Counter opinion: if you want to advance in your career, always opt for management roles when given an option, even if you feel you don't love the shitwork that comes with it. Management is more versatile, more leveraged, and always has a seat at the table, whereas senior IC's power is serving at the peril of some manager. I would argue the most senior ICs that actually are successful are also managers who are afforde…

counter counter point: Meta, Amazon, and other tech co's have considerably flattened their orgs in recent years

Well, no one bats an eye if a manager chooses to become an IC (of course they have to know their shit, many of whom don't, and always bluff "I wish I was an IC"), but from IC to manager is not an automatic option.

Being a manager is "not a promotion" promotion.