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How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

lizthedeveloper.com

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Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#121

Post by alttab »

JimboOmega wrote: post #22

Am I the only coder who's always wanted to move into the business side eventually? I go back and forth on if I want to pursue an MBA every couple years or so (though I doubt the education would be worth it, it'd be a stamp on my resume for wanting to go that direction). Working with brilliant people and managing people problems are very complex and interesting to me.

Im with you dude. I began programming when I was 10 and have been doing it my entire life. Once I began working in organizations instead of on my own projects I was fascinated as to how the code I wrote was only a piece of it. I moved into management and I haven't really looked back. I still get to code, but its when I want to.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#122

Post by solistice »

jghn wrote: post #120
solistice wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So essentially managers are people sysadmins. They make sure everyone is working, try to resolve conflicts and ideally make sure that everyone is running the right tools. What would be a people engineer in that vein?

Yes. Although in my case when I was talking about my 'best managers', they were also the people who were brilliant and were really good at the tech side too. These people all just had a natural ability to navigate through the political BS while still being extremely competent software folks.

Looks like those people were truly "full stack". From the tech layer to the interdepartmental layer.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#123

Post by tdaltonc »

morgante wrote: post #119

A lot of people in this thread are pointing to the possibility of a technical track, but I just don't buy it. Any technical track stops far short of the management track, even in the most enlightened of companies. Taken to an extreme, you don't get to be CEO off the technical track. Ultimately, if you want more money and influence, you have to choose the management track. The technical track just exists to keep techn…

Some people value autonomy and freedom from obligation more than money and influence.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#124

Post by jghn »

solistice wrote: post #122
jghn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Although in my case when I was talking about my 'best managers', they were also the people who were brilliant and were really good at the tech side too. These people all just had a natural ability to navigate through the political BS while still being extremely competent software folks.

Looks like those people were truly "full stack". From the tech layer to the interdepartmental layer.

Yes, as much as I hate that term it really does apply here. And I'm really only thinking of 2, maybe 3 folks. These were the people who managed to be the most productive members of the team while dealing with all of the manager BS. When you find one of those you do what you can to stay under them.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#125

Post by morgante »

tdaltonc wrote: post #123
morgante wrote: post #119

A lot of people in this thread are pointing to the possibility of a technical track, but I just don't buy it. Any technical track stops far short of the management track, even in the most enlightened of companies. Taken to an extreme, you don't get to be CEO off the technical track. Ultimately, if you want more money and influence, you have to choose the management track. The technical track just exists to keep techn…

Some people value autonomy and freedom from obligation more than money and influence.

> Some people value autonomy and freedom from obligation more than money and influence.

Of course I know & respect that. My point is just that having a "technical track" does not remove the incentives many engineers see for moving into management.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#126

Post by cardiffspaceman »

morgante wrote: post #119

A lot of people in this thread are pointing to the possibility of a technical track, but I just don't buy it. Any technical track stops far short of the management track, even in the most enlightened of companies. Taken to an extreme, you don't get to be CEO off the technical track. Ultimately, if you want more money and influence, you have to choose the management track. The technical track just exists to keep techn…

You may be right, but you might find plenty of managers wielding their power and/or influence, who wish they made as much as the guys at the top of the technical track.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#127

Post by [deleted] »

morgante wrote: post #119

A lot of people in this thread are pointing to the possibility of a technical track, but I just don't buy it. Any technical track stops far short of the management track, even in the most enlightened of companies. Taken to an extreme, you don't get to be CEO off the technical track. Ultimately, if you want more money and influence, you have to choose the management track. The technical track just exists to keep techn…

[deleted]

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#128

Post by analog31 »

blumkvist wrote: post #80
analog31 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My observation is that the MBA degree is primarily valued by other MBA's.

That really depends on where you got your MBA.

Where, when, and how.

Where: The school that you attend.

When: Straight out of college, or after working for a while?

How: Online or in-person?

In my neck o' the woods, there's a general sentiment that the MBA degree is more valuable (i.e., marketable) if you get it after already establishing your success in the business world. The route of going to business school directly after college is associated with the suspicion that you couldn't get a job, and still need to come up to speed in a business environment.

The people I know who have done this are mostly techies of some sort, and the conventional wisdom seems to be that business school is "hard" because of the math involved (finance and also some basic statistics), so if you're good at math, then it's not very hard.

From what I can tell, online programs from prestigious schools are gaining acceptance.

I don't know if the rule of thumb about graduate education applies to MBA programs: Don't attend grad school unless somebody else is paying for it. A benefit of getting an executive MBA while working, is if your employer is willing to reimburse you.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#129

Post by jshen »

ObviousScience wrote: post #69
jshen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most obvious flaw, a programmer is only worth 5.7 times their 1999 salary if their work is generating 5.7 times as much revenue as it would have in 1999. I see no evidence that this is the case. If it were the case, and the vast majority of programmers are earning 1/6 of what their work is worth, then there is a huge opportunity that you can exploit to get rich. Go for it, and let us know how it works out.

Didn't a lot of major corporations get in trouble recently because they colluded to stop engineers from correcting this imbalance? Your argument seems to ignore that market forces agreed that engineers were underpaid, and it was only by illegal collusion that their wages were kept to what they were.

My point still stands. If this is true there is an enormous opportunity for you to get rich. Try it and let us know how it goes.

Re: How to reward skilled coders with something other than people management

#130

Post by irremediable »

Bahamut wrote: post #109
peteretep wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus.. the director job is generally going to mean a > more relaxed job If you believe responsibility over people, budgets, liabilities and policy is less stressful than responsibility over systems, you're high. As a programmer, let me tell you: people who have only ever done programming for a career have no clue how relatively easy they have it.

To add some more details - being a good manager can be a delicate dance. When you are a manager, you start to become responsible for high level tasks that have huge impact to a company. However, if you micromanage too much, you create an awful culture of fear and hamper developer productivity. So how do you inspire developers to execute in a timeframe dictated by others? You have to be a leader who inspires the engin…

Thanks for sharing your story. This is part of why I love HN: I can learn from the experiences of people who're interested in similar things to what I'm interested in, but who're much further along in life.

Also wow, well done on shielding your junior engineers from the worst of the death march. Did you suffer much from burnout during your heroic effort? How did you cope?

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