My company does yearly 360s. But you only can rate peers and maybe one level up. I think they could flush out incompetent managers (there are many) quickly if people could rank managers several layers up. I can think of several directors who basically destroyed the culture of their department. They were good at talking to their uppers but made horrible decisions in hiring and management. But there was no way to raise this issue in a safe manner.
Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave
141–150 of 674 posts
Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave
#142I had cautiously gotten into management because I wanted to learn the skills of delegatin and really building through others and growing/coaching others. I thoroughly enjoyed this. But over time what I had realized was the role had been changing (not sure if it was just for pandering) towards being a mouth piece for leadership and hr - having to relay decisions I didn't believe in (perf seasons, promo rationales, lay…
> towards being a mouth piece for leadership and hr - having to relay decisions I didn't believe in (perf seasons, promo rationales, layoffs anybody?) As if they were on purely my own.
The role doesn't change though. It has been like that forever.
This is another part of Management (whether you like it or not). Management should be seen as a cohesive "Leadership" unit because if the leaders aren't on the same page, what good are them?
The other thing about Management/Leadership is that they should be able to relay the message in the right format and at the right level for their direct reports. C-level typically have OKR/Objective in 3-5 bullet points (the bigger the company, the more bullet points) and it's the VP and Dir jobs to break these individual points to high-level goals for their Organizations. It is the Manager's job to distill it even further to their level + their direct reports.
It's one way to keep ICs on the same frequency with leadership and to execute for a common goal.
Most ICs don't want to attend meetings, don't want to hear "high-level goals", and more importantly, don't have the skill to consume those high-level goals at their level. They need help from various layers of leaderships. Sure, there are those exceptional ICs that wouldn't mind to be involved at that level and understood the social/human aspect part of the work but let's be frank here: majority of ICs just want to bang keyboard, produce clean code, and marvel at the end results (ignoring everything in between).
Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience is much the opposite: the managers who want to write a lot of code usually are so focused on their contributions they fail their other responsibilities. The ones who are trying to set product direction are usually harmful, too. The managers I've had the best experience with are the ones who focus on helping their ICs navigate the larger organization, dealing with human issues, and helping the ICs unders…
what's an IC? a piece of corporate-speak i haven't come across before.
Individual contributor
Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave
#144The vast majority of the managers I've worked with wouldn't be particularly good ICs, not so sure of the wisdom of this move. Maybe it's a way to slow roll a bunch of layoffs.
It's definitely a way to reset the culture and get rid of people who don't fit what Mark is trying to achieve.
but what the heck is he "trying to achieve" - write a third-rate web video game?
Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
The same applies to being a manager though. You're not going to get promoted forever in any role, at some point you'll hit a terminal level, whether that's in an IC track or a management track. And it's not a problem as long as you find your work fulfilling.
Well I guess the difference is that the top of the technical leadership track is ostensibly CTO, which is a “higher” role than you’d typically see on the IC side. That said I totally agree with you overall and think the argument you are responding to is a little silly. You can have an absolutely fantastic career staying IC forever. The fact that you might cap out at “staff/principal/whatever engineer,” a hugely influ…
Well, in terms of the org chart, you’ll always be higher at an equivalent point in the management track compared to the IC track (starting from team lead, who will report to the team manager), but that’s not necessarily mean there’s not that as room for growth.
Even the CTO can have incredibly senior engineers reporting to them as a consultant of sorts. Sure, the probability of arriving at that role is low, but then so is the probability of becoming CTO.
Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave
#146Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience is much the opposite: the managers who want to write a lot of code usually are so focused on their contributions they fail their other responsibilities. The ones who are trying to set product direction are usually harmful, too. The managers I've had the best experience with are the ones who focus on helping their ICs navigate the larger organization, dealing with human issues, and helping the ICs unders…
what's an IC? a piece of corporate-speak i haven't come across before.
[deleted]
Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends on the company, of course (and I've no idea how it works at Facebook), but some companies make their EMs out of ICs (much like Pokemon, I assume touching a special rock is required to effect the evolution) and it's somewhat common for EMs to re-IC-ify on their own anyway.
When the EM becomes an IC, how does this help the team grow their own skills and not get distracted by problems the EM should be moving out of their way? When the EM is an IC, what stops them from either interfering with small stuff (I had an EM -- back then we called them "managers" -- stop us for a week trying to determine whether we should use List or Vector in Scala. Nobody was happy) or taking the big interestin…
> When the EM becomes an IC, how does this help the team grow their own skills and not get distracted by problems the EM should be moving out of their way?
Well, generally the team would still have an EM, just not that EM.
> When the EM is an IC, what stops them from either interfering with small stuff
What stops any IC doing that?
Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience is much the opposite: the managers who want to write a lot of code usually are so focused on their contributions they fail their other responsibilities. The ones who are trying to set product direction are usually harmful, too. The managers I've had the best experience with are the ones who focus on helping their ICs navigate the larger organization, dealing with human issues, and helping the ICs unders…
what's an IC? a piece of corporate-speak i haven't come across before.
Individual Contributor
Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience is much the opposite: the managers who want to write a lot of code usually are so focused on their contributions they fail their other responsibilities. The ones who are trying to set product direction are usually harmful, too. The managers I've had the best experience with are the ones who focus on helping their ICs navigate the larger organization, dealing with human issues, and helping the ICs unders…
what's an IC? a piece of corporate-speak i haven't come across before.
Individual Contributor. Line engineer. Has a manager and likely doesn't have direct-reports of their own.