171–180 of 202 posts
I think the key takeaway is to never believe when someone says "Don't worry, you'll get promoted in no time".
This. Anytime management asks you to do some work, ask them - "How will this play into my promotion?" If they can't come up with tangible points, don't do the work. You are not risking anything because at this point, the manager has already decided they want to string you along.
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VP Engineering/Director of Engineering/CTO are all essentially the same role.
They're not. VP Eng is a management role whereas CTO has an expectation of technical leadership or strategy. VP Eng has a focus on operations, the processes and mechanics of the engineering organization, whereas the CTO has a focus on the future technical path of the org.
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I'm an L6 IC. Basically I had a track record of delivering projects that other engineers said couldn't be done yet were a high priority to upper management. That's actually on the (Google at least) ladder: "At this level...most Google-caliber generalist SWEs could not own and solve the problem this person is owning and solving." Note that even though I'm a coding-heavy L6 (meaning I spend ~50% of my time coding vs. t…
Can you give an example of a project like that? Or at least a hypothetical example if they are confidential. I can’t think of a project like that that people said couldn't be done, its usually just people saying “we cant do it at this time unless we get more time or reprioritize something else.”
There's nothing (unless it hasn't been invented yet) that can't be implemented in software in a silo given infinite time, but the ability to deliver complex solutions to difficult business/process problems that require buy in and coordination from a lot of people are probably these kinds of projects, particularly if these projects are alterations or additions to other pieces of complex processes that already exist and are hardened but need improvement or overhaul.
Here's an example from my work. We use a legacy version control system alongside git. This causes tons of issues and the way forward would be to deprecate the legacy version control, but doing so without disrupting current engineering work and making tangible improvements going forward is a very complex task that spans a whole lot of teams and is risky and tricky to implement
I got down leveled when I moved to big tech. Spent two years completely remaking the product I was tasked to work on, while the two other engineers on my team, both a level above me, cheered me on and didn’t do much. I turned our product from a total waste about to be cancelled into a promising tech with some momentum, but I spent all my time coding instead of writing about coding, and I likely won’t get promoted aga…
Recently left a small startup for Google and was recently talking with someone who thought I was going for promotion. I asked if I should, they then looked at my profile and said "You've only been here X long so they won't give it to you even if you deserve it."
Completely different world. Completely different mentality.
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Are you me? I spent the last 3 years completely redeveloping the foundation of our platform which will save the company millions of dollars a year. I didn't do it alone or anything. But I started the project, was the only one to work on it full time throughout the whole project, defined the underlying architecture, and implemented most of the lowest layers. I poured all my energy into the project. We launched beginni…
It's a signal from the market ("employer") that what you currently offer is not what they currently value. If you desire greater rewards/ recognition, you need to discover what they value and decide if you want to offer that. Developers expect that work such as "refactoring", "platform architecture", "R&D", "investing into the future" has some intrinsic value to the business. At the company level, work such as "knowl…
Is that really what it's signaling? "Need" and "salary" seem only loosely related.
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Are you me? I spent the last 3 years completely redeveloping the foundation of our platform which will save the company millions of dollars a year. I didn't do it alone or anything. But I started the project, was the only one to work on it full time throughout the whole project, defined the underlying architecture, and implemented most of the lowest layers. I poured all my energy into the project. We launched beginni…
> I tried to quit, but relented when I was convinced not to How did they convince you not to? Please tell me they have offered you something concrete and haven't just made empty promises or said nice things. (I'm running on the assumption the unlimited holiday you mentioned is company policy rather than something they've done just for you, so by "something concrete" I very specifically mean compensation - salary, bon…
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Can you give an example of a project like that? Or at least a hypothetical example if they are confidential. I can’t think of a project like that that people said couldn't be done, its usually just people saying “we cant do it at this time unless we get more time or reprioritize something else.”
Not OP, but I image they are more projects that span multiple teams, disciplines, and stakeholders. There's nothing (unless it hasn't been invented yet) that can't be implemented in software in a silo given infinite time, but the ability to deliver complex solutions to difficult business/process problems that require buy in and coordination from a lot of people are probably these kinds of projects, particularly if th…
I got down leveled when I moved to big tech. Spent two years completely remaking the product I was tasked to work on, while the two other engineers on my team, both a level above me, cheered me on and didn’t do much. I turned our product from a total waste about to be cancelled into a promising tech with some momentum, but I spent all my time coding instead of writing about coding, and I likely won’t get promoted aga…
The final product was shockingly close to my original documentation and implementation. Part of the reason for this was the core implementation was all done by me, but I actually set good enough direction that after I left the company, a year later the final product was closer to what I designed than when I left. This product is still being maintained and the core functionality is the same and has been expanded upon (that is no full rewrite). The implementation isn't ideal imo and could be improved in a variety of ways, but it works well enough for the users 2 years later.
This entire ordeal burnt me out hard enough that I took 5 months off and I'm still recovering, and I've basically given up on leveling up in a traditional tech company in anyway. People might tell me I didn't play the game right, and I didn't, but it did really drill that politics and appearance is more important than impact. Especially anything that can be made to look like indirect influence can be used to take credit. I made the mistake of trusting managers and senior engineers with my ideas and they didn't return the favor.
“For example, a senior title at Big Tech typically expects more from an engineer than a small developer agency, a non-tech-first company, or a recently founded start-up does” This is simply not true. Seniors at FAANG type companies simply dont do that much. Typically have a narrow specialty and a good grasp on how it fits into the larger Org’s strategy etc. Senior engineers at a small shop do EVERYTHING. Front end, b…
> Seniors at FAANG type companies simply dont do that much I could see why some at smaller companies would believe that, or rather prefer to believe that.