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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)

#131

Post by the_af »

questionableans wrote: post #124
LPisGood wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making your whole living on influence without authority sounds awful.

That’s life. Unless you’re a hermit, a complete pushover, or a slave master, you’re constantly trying to influence without authority. Want to go out to dinner with friends? That’s influence without authority right there. Want to get your PR approved? Influence without authority. Trying to get your point across to strangers online? Ditto.

Yes, but the stakes at your job are different. You don't get fired or get bad performance reviews if you fail to convince your friends to go out for dinner. You're not expected to be constantly be doing this either. You are not paid a top salary and get performance reviews based on that.

Principal ICs sounds like a high stress occupation...

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

#132

Post by the_af »

questionableans wrote: post #125
the_af wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being balanced about political/soft skills makes me nervous, especially when it becomes a mandate and your main role. Some people are good at it, some are bad -- but it's completely irrational to expect this to be the logical next step for ICs and senior engineers. I've seen it backfire spectacularly when a very senior engineer who worked in a critical part of the product was forced into this "because of promotions",…

That’s why a lot of companies only promote after demonstrating a track record of performing at the next level. It can also be an argument for secret levels. Although I’m not sure how useful that really is in practice. For someone who does well at influence, it’s not a mandate, it’s permission to spend some time on the nontechnical factors that are necessary to make your work turn out better. And that also means helpi…

> That’s why a lot of companies only promote after demonstrating a track record of performing at the next level.

If that's the case, why is this article needed? Someone promoted to Principal is already savvy, why would they benefit from this advice?

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

#133

Post by ninetyninenine »

procaryote wrote: post #76
ninetyninenine wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have. It's more stressful. But it's still 1x talent and 1x effort. Anyone can do it, it's just harder in the same way being a garbage man is hard. 10x engineers don't need to be principals. The idea behind principals is that they don't do any engineering. They leverage the work of others to become 10x. It's very much considered a "leadership" or management role overall. A 10x engineer is usually literally a person…

I've seen zero people become 10x because of AI. Conservatively it seems closer to ±0.5x and it takes a while to figure out if it's + or - I didn't understand the point of managers until I got a good one. Perhaps you've just been unlucky

I literally see the opposite. What I'm seeing is if you're not using AI, you're going to be left behind. What used to take a week or more is now expected to be finished in a day thanks to AI. The expectations have shifted by a lot.

I do know there are entire companies who have not bought into AI yet because the paradigm shift happened so quickly. The AI of 1 year ago could not make someone 10x. The AI of today can and if everyone knew about it, they would be using it.

>I didn't understand the point of managers until I got a good one. Perhaps you've just been unlucky

There is a point. The point is to set direction and to shield the engineer from politics. That is the point. Let me make it utterly clear: The role of leadership and management is REQUIRED. I never said otherwise.

My point, however, is to say that the primary skill involved in setting direction and shielding the engineer from politics and all this "leadership" stuff is this:

it is hard work, but it is not skilled work. The garbage man works hard, but anyone can do his job. There are certain people who do a shit job at being a garbage man and there are people who do a good job, but the overall job is considered unskilled labor. That is essentially what "leadership" is. And like the garbage man, the job is required.

The main difference between the garbage man and the leader is essentially perception. Because leadership is essentially a form of control, perception is controlled. That means leaders are perceived to be better and they are thus paid more but the on the ground truth is that what they do is not skilled work.

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

#134

Post by ninetyninenine »

neilv wrote: post #55
ninetyninenine wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your second sentence. But Anyone can do that, it's not a skill exclusive to principals. The idea that only certain types of people have the intelligence to spot things like this are principals is wrong.

Agreed, many people do that, and that's great. Maybe we should think of the Principal role as complementary? If you're working on a compiler, you're going to be interacting cross-team with hardware engineering team, etc., and spotting lots of things. But someone who is looking at all the teams, and not spending so much time on compiler details specifically, will spot some things the compiler person doesn't. So togeth…

it can be, but the fact of the matter is the role is viewed as "better". Principals are better, smarter, more experienced and higher ranking than people who don't hold that position.

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

#135

Post by the_af »

zb wrote: post #119
the_af wrote: post #37

To me, in a way, it reads like Principal IC is the worst possible job. You're doing all the politicking and influencing stuff many of us presumably don't like and associate with management roles, while also being expected to be "hands on" and at the top of your technical game. "Nothing is not part of your job", as this article describes it. Someone who's not doing this, the article argues, "is setting themselves up f…

Another way to look at it is that you’re getting to do all of the fulfilling parts of management roles (helping your team(s) to grow and develop) without the less fulfilling parts (endless meetings, budget spreadsheets, unpleasant conversations, having to give up writing code). > These are not rookies if they reached Principal IC, but the most experienced team members ever, yet the author still feels the need to say…

> At this level the job is qualitatively different from what went before - you do start as a rookie in this role, and if you only try to keep doing what you’ve done before only better then you’re not setting yourself up for success.

Other people here are arguing that you only get promoted to Principal IC if you have been already acting like one in practice. We cannot have it both ways...

And if not, this seems like the Peters Principle. Why inflict this promotion on someone doing well in the other role?

If you show promise but you haven't proven yourself, that's a risky move. You either succeed or you're out, there's no going back to the previous role. I've seen it happen...

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

#136

Post by ninetyninenine »

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.

Politics. It's less about skill and more about social engineering.

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

#137

Post by untrust »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #133
procaryote wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen zero people become 10x because of AI. Conservatively it seems closer to ±0.5x and it takes a while to figure out if it's + or - I didn't understand the point of managers until I got a good one. Perhaps you've just been unlucky

I literally see the opposite. What I'm seeing is if you're not using AI, you're going to be left behind. What used to take a week or more is now expected to be finished in a day thanks to AI. The expectations have shifted by a lot. I do know there are entire companies who have not bought into AI yet because the paradigm shift happened so quickly. The AI of 1 year ago could not make someone 10x. The AI of today can an…

> The AI of today can and if everyone knew about it, they would be using it.

The AI of today absolutely does not add 0.5x, I'm using cursor and copilot and they still are usually just a fiddly tool which gets it right half the time. Anything complicated enough to need me to review its work takes longer through series of prompting and correcting its work than if I did it myself, and anything trivial enough for it to one shot its not saving me much time on anyways. All for a costly monthly subscription.

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

#138

Post by questionableans »

the_af wrote: post #132
questionableans wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why a lot of companies only promote after demonstrating a track record of performing at the next level. It can also be an argument for secret levels. Although I’m not sure how useful that really is in practice. For someone who does well at influence, it’s not a mandate, it’s permission to spend some time on the nontechnical factors that are necessary to make your work turn out better. And that also means helpi…

> That’s why a lot of companies only promote after demonstrating a track record of performing at the next level. If that's the case, why is this article needed? Someone promoted to Principal is already savvy, why would they benefit from this advice?

Why does an experienced programmer ever need to look anything up?

It’s useful to have reference materials to check against, or for things you haven’t worked in recently.

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

#139

Post by questionableans »

the_af wrote: post #131
questionableans wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s life. Unless you’re a hermit, a complete pushover, or a slave master, you’re constantly trying to influence without authority. Want to go out to dinner with friends? That’s influence without authority right there. Want to get your PR approved? Influence without authority. Trying to get your point across to strangers online? Ditto.

Yes, but the stakes at your job are different. You don't get fired or get bad performance reviews if you fail to convince your friends to go out for dinner. You're not expected to be constantly be doing this either. You are not paid a top salary and get performance reviews based on that. Principal ICs sounds like a high stress occupation...

I’m sure the stress level varies by the individual.

The upside to a more collaborative role like this is you don’t have the stress of having to know everything. Individual developer roles can be more stressful because if you say you’ll solve a problem in a certain amount of time, and then you’re off on your own coding, and things aren’t working out… you’re personally on the hook for the whole thing. Whereas if you’re leading an effort and company priorities shift so people can’t contribute as much, you communicate that to all your stakeholders, and look good for letting higher priority efforts have more resources.

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

#140

Post by ninetyninenine »

untrust wrote: post #137
ninetyninenine wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally see the opposite. What I'm seeing is if you're not using AI, you're going to be left behind. What used to take a week or more is now expected to be finished in a day thanks to AI. The expectations have shifted by a lot. I do know there are entire companies who have not bought into AI yet because the paradigm shift happened so quickly. The AI of 1 year ago could not make someone 10x. The AI of today can an…

> The AI of today can and if everyone knew about it, they would be using it. The AI of today absolutely does not add 0.5x, I'm using cursor and copilot and they still are usually just a fiddly tool which gets it right half the time. Anything complicated enough to need me to review its work takes longer through series of prompting and correcting its work than if I did it myself, and anything trivial enough for it to o…

Unfortunately my on the ground experience is drastically different from you. I use Claude code though so that might be the difference.

But AI for me is right 90 percent of the time. It’s possible our prompt engineering is different.

> The AI of today absolutely does not add 0.5x, I'm using cursor and copilot and they still are us

You know when people say shit like this I wonder if they ever are able to think from another perspective? Like they say one thing but tons and tons of other people are saying another thing and what gets me absolutely curious is how someone can be so brain fucking dead that they can’t even consider the other perspective. Tons and tons of people say what you say but an equal amount say the opposite.

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