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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)

#151

Post by the_af »

conception wrote: post #60
swaits wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 100% how it works at Amazon. It is said you have to do the job (of Principal Engineer) to get promoted. But most Principal Engineers are doing a different job than the job you have to do to become one yourself. Signed, PE@Amazon for 9 years.

I think it’s how it works everywhere. People see who’s good at their job and promote them to manager; an entirely different job though people often think it needs the same skill set.

But doesn't this contradict the bit where they argue "to be promoted to X, you must have already been acting like X in practice"?

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

#152

Post by LPisGood »

imiric wrote: post #146
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.

> Want to get your PR approved? Influence without authority. That's not really the case. First of all, software development is—or should be—a collaborative effort. The PRs I create are no more "mine" than the ones I review from my peers. We're all working towards the same goal, and developers shouldn't have to defend or vouch for their work. Secondly, politics plays a role in every organization, unfortunately IMO. So…

>Reviews of their code often have a single "LGTM!"

Unless the code is a very simple change, the code should at least have the occasional question or suggestion.

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

#153

Post by yathaid »

the_af wrote: post #151
conception wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s how it works everywhere. People see who’s good at their job and promote them to manager; an entirely different job though people often think it needs the same skill set.

But doesn't this contradict the bit where they argue "to be promoted to X, you must have already been acting like X in practice"?

A part of the job is only enabled when you get the Principal label. Unlike almost all other transitions, you only prove that you can do the role when given the opportunities. The hardest part about this transition is that you are doing two almost orthogonal roles - Sr. SDE / Tech Lead and the principal parts. It is very easy to not show impact in the former while chasing the latter.

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

#154

Post by the_af »

yathaid wrote: post #153
the_af wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But doesn't this contradict the bit where they argue "to be promoted to X, you must have already been acting like X in practice"?

A part of the job is only enabled when you get the Principal label. Unlike almost all other transitions, you only prove that you can do the role when given the opportunities. The hardest part about this transition is that you are doing two almost orthogonal roles - Sr. SDE / Tech Lead and the principal parts. It is very easy to not show impact in the former while chasing the latter.

A part of the job that is completely different to what you've been doing, only you were promoted to it because of what you've been doing?

Isn't this like a recipe for the Peter Principle?

    "The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another"

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

#155

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

the_af wrote: post #100
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, in a way, it reads like Principal IC is the worst possible job. It depends on the person, I think. Personally, I often end up doing this sort of work, particularly in smaller companies. I really like it, but appreciate that the vast, vast majority of people I work with would hate it. For some people, they prefer to lead through influence, rather than through a reporting line. There's a lot of toil in managin…

A valid perspective. I don't mind influencing people in the areas I know, but I resent the politicking and being forced to do it outside my area of expertise (and I don't believe about Principal IC can really know enough about everything, like the article implies). You worked in the design of Airflow? We're heavy users at my current company.

> You worked in the design of Airflow? We're heavy users at my current company.

God no, but I vaguely know a few of the people involved. It was just a good example of a software tool with incredibly large impact.

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

#156

Post by procaryote »

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…

This is a bit of a naive view of what a manager does. I've hired lots of managers and have interviewed a lot more, and there are definite real skills to the role. Those skills include hiring good people, fixing teams that don't work well, etc

It would be lovely if all they needed to do was point vaguely in some direction and stop other managers from talking to the team. I could hire much cheaper people for that

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

#157

Post by yathaid »

the_af wrote: post #154
yathaid wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A part of the job is only enabled when you get the Principal label. Unlike almost all other transitions, you only prove that you can do the role when given the opportunities. The hardest part about this transition is that you are doing two almost orthogonal roles - Sr. SDE / Tech Lead and the principal parts. It is very easy to not show impact in the former while chasing the latter.

A part of the job that is completely different to what you've been doing, only you were promoted to it because of what you've been doing? Isn't this like a recipe for the Peter Principle? "The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous…

Nobody performs as the CEO until they are given the CEO title. If the Peter principle was true 100% of the time, we wouldn't have any successful CEOs ever. Which is clearly not the case.

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

#158

Post by the_af »

yathaid wrote: post #157
the_af wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A part of the job that is completely different to what you've been doing, only you were promoted to it because of what you've been doing? Isn't this like a recipe for the Peter Principle? "The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous…

Nobody performs as the CEO until they are given the CEO title. If the Peter principle was true 100% of the time, we wouldn't have any successful CEOs ever. Which is clearly not the case.

Some CEOs do, some don't. Some are successful, some are middling, some are shameful failures or frauds.

However, none of this has much to do with what I said: isn't promoting someone for things they would have to stop doing (as in TFA) a recipe for the Peter principle?

At some point, we have to understand articles and blog posts like the one we're discussing are mostly fluff; an ad for the person writing them. They are self-promotion, there's not much sense in trying to extract valuable lessons from them.

----

I thought of another analogy:

"You're an excellent marksman and a sniper, therefore we promote you to... general of the army!"

But, you could argue, maybe the sniper was already directing strategy, and that's why he got promoted? Nope, TFA is clear about this:

    "To get to principal, you need to put yourself on the critical path. To be effective as a principal and go beyond it, you need to actively remove yourself from it"
So whatever the sniper was doing that got him promoted to general, he must now stop doing it.

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

#159

Post by ninetyninenine »

procaryote wrote: post #156
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…

This is a bit of a naive view of what a manager does. I've hired lots of managers and have interviewed a lot more, and there are definite real skills to the role. Those skills include hiring good people, fixing teams that don't work well, etc It would be lovely if all they needed to do was point vaguely in some direction and stop other managers from talking to the team. I could hire much cheaper people for that

Those are skills those are some guidelines that once people follow it most people can do it.

Nowhere did I say we needed to point in a general direction and let it go.

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

#160

Post by questionableans »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #145
questionableans wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but leading through a reporting line is 90% influence, too. Relying on pulling rank will get your best reports to find a way to leave ASAP, and others will follow.

That's true, but it's still different with Principal roles as you can't get budget or headcount of your own.

Technically yes, but it’s not much different for line managers and often second level managers, though. Maybe you can approve expenses up to $500 at a time and get headcount for a couple more people approved from time to time. Not that different from an IC with a strong relationship with directors and VPs getting the same sort of allocations approved for a team/project they work with/are spinning up.
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