I hate the term "individual contributor" how else does anyone contribute but individually
The case for becoming a manager
11–20 of 59 posts
Re: The case for becoming a manager
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's it. He's a colleague. Not a mentor You're missing a very important aspect of how managers impact your career: Opportunities. The manager's job is to find you impactful work that a) gets you promoted and b) challenges you in the ways you want or need to grow.
Am I missing this, or are you assuming that I am incapable of finding opportunities myself, within or without the organization that the manager is beholden to? I honestly can't understand this framing, of the manager's job as a sort of opportunity finder for those 'under' them, and somehow being more impactful at this than the individuals themselves. I'll give you this, some people need to be managed and for some rea…
This is a pretty odd take, from my perspective.
If one of my direct reports came to me and said they were interested in working on, say... AI observability (replace with whatever interests you), and that was something I had any influence over (even if only indirectly), I'd be finding whatever way I could to connect my report with that kind of work.
It's all well and good to say that you're in control of your own career advancement, but that's not in conflict with working with your manager on supporting your career development. Even if they don't have anything to teach you, they will necessarily have some influence of your scope/area of work, so it only makes sense to work them on aligning your work with your interests.
Re: The case for becoming a manager
#13I hate the term "individual contributor" how else does anyone contribute but individually
A lot of professions have terms of art that can be interpreted incorrectly or be viewed as odd by laymen. "Individual contributor" is no different.
Maybe it sounds weird to you, but it's a well-understood term in the management profession.
Re: The case for becoming a manager
#14Not usually one to complain about AI, but I felt that there was some superfluous content here - maybe the use of AI has made it longer but not stronger.
Yep, I stopped reading as soon as I saw the obvious AI language. It's a huge turnoff.
Re: The case for becoming a manager
#15I think this article does a great job at conveying the new skills you need from a work-completing perspective as a manager, but there's another aspect that is much more subtle and long-term: being a guide for other people's careers. I've seen dozens of people start managing, stop managing, change roles (including myself), etc, and there are two extremes that stand out: 1. Management out of necessity. They became a ma…
Perhaps these two roles shouldn't be conflated into a single position?
Re: The case for becoming a manager
#16I avoided having minions for my entire 30 year IT career. Fuck if I'm going to let someone else's mistakes reflect negatively on me.
May you be released from thinking that your mistakes reflect poorly on anyone, including yourself. Being bad is a necessary part of becoming good
When did I say any of that? wtf are you talking about? I clearly said OTHER PEOPLE's mistakes, not my own. But thanks for playing.
edit: In fact, that is exactly my point. I DO take responsibility for my own mistakes, I just don't want to be held responsible for OTHER PEOPLE's mistakes.
Re: The case for becoming a manager
#17My motivation was quite different, and i'd like to encourage more people to consider the same.
Often times narcissistic power grabbing (often technically incompetent) engineers become managers, like it was the case a previous team I've worked at and it was quite penalizing to the whole team.
I've realized that either i can be the one managing and try to do good, or be at the mercy of another manager; chose the first.
Re: The case for becoming a manager
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Am I missing this, or are you assuming that I am incapable of finding opportunities myself, within or without the organization that the manager is beholden to? I honestly can't understand this framing, of the manager's job as a sort of opportunity finder for those 'under' them, and somehow being more impactful at this than the individuals themselves. I'll give you this, some people need to be managed and for some rea…
This is a pretty odd take, from my perspective. If one of my direct reports came to me and said they were interested in working on, say... AI observability (replace with whatever interests you), and that was something I had any influence over (even if only indirectly), I'd be finding whatever way I could to connect my report with that kind of work. It's all well and good to say that you're in control of your own care…
I believe everything you wrote about here is actually cooperation between two people, and to the point of what I said, you not actively getting in the way of your direct report's career progression.
> The manager's job is to find you impactful work that a) gets you promoted and b) challenges you in the ways you want or need to grow.
To me, the comment I responded to reads like a manager actively involved in the promotion of a direct report, and in finding a scope of work that the report might find challenging so that they grow. Your comment reads like a colleague helping out another colleague to the best of their ability. Which is exactly what I expect from a manager.
Re: The case for becoming a manager
#19There won't be many managers for long. And definitely not the ones that don't know proper engineering. Teams are already shrinking, managers will be the first casualty.
Re: The case for becoming a manager
#20I avoided having minions for my entire 30 year IT career. Fuck if I'm going to let someone else's mistakes reflect negatively on me.
That's an entirely valid point of view, and one plenty of people share. Being accountable for other people's mistakes sucks.
The only issue with it is that you can only get positive side for work you do directly, which limits the scale of what you're seen to be capable of doing. I lead a team of about 50 (7 directly, plus their teams), so I get to lead on quite big projects that I'd only work on smaller parts of I wasn't a manager. I enjoy that aspect of my role. But yeah, taking the blame when someone screw up isn't fun.