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Don't become an engineering manager

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Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#171

Post by dasil003 »

array_key_first wrote: post #147
democracy wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, you've got it absolutely the wrong way around.

There's a lot of cogs at big companies, but the impact of the entire company is huge. Startups usually have small impact. Usually at these big companies there's quite a few atlases holding the entire world up.

Sure also in big companies there are plenty of places for low performers to survive by owning some very small and rigid scope that doesn’t require any real end-to-end thinking.

In my experience distribution of engineer quality is even across companies, countries, ages and any other dimension we can come up. Certain big scale skills can really only be practiced at honed at large tech companies, but it’s always a small minority that actually make those things happen. Resume alone can be an extremely misleading signal.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#172

Post by Swizec »

elevatortrim wrote: post #168
Swizec wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interesting, you've got it absolutely the wrong way around. Maybe. That's why you need to put your scope on the resume :) I had a CTO title 15 years ago. The complexity of what we were building was a joke compared to what I own now as a lowly "tech lead manager". And in fact back then I wouldn't even be able to comprehend how complex things can get.

That may be your anecdote but CTO at a 30-50 person scale up would typically have much more management/accounting/signature/high-stake conversation/... experience than a senior developer at google.

Yes. Which is why it's important to put scope on your resume.

I can't know you ran a 30 person scale up unless you tell me. It doesn't have to be in those words exactly, usually it's tied to ARR or rounds raised or something you can easily talk about that translates across companies.

I've seen resumes with titles like "Lead Engineer" who under that title put something like "Hired 45+ people to run at ". That person has more scope than the 30-people CTO in your example :)

PS: 30 people isn't even that many for a whole company. That's a Series A startup with early signs of product-market-fit. It's common to see a ratio of 10 employees for every 1 engineer in the company.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#173

Post by icedchai »

stego-tech wrote: post #119
Aurornis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that it really depends on the organisation. This is entirely it. Titles should be consistently ordered within an organization, but they are not portable from one organization to another. This is a lesson I’ve had to explain over and over to people at the beginning of their careers. I’ve been asked for advice about which offer to take from people thinking about leaving 10s of thousands of dollars on the table becaus…

This is why I align on comp ranges rather than title. I've been a "Lead" where all I contributed was a new imaging pipeline and introducing NAT to the product line, a "Manager" of a failing company where I had no managerial authority or direct reports, and a "Senior" at a SV firm where I actually behaved a level above a Senior Engineer - owning outcomes, doing research, mentoring juniors, building relationships acros…

I've worked with several "Directors" that all had between 0 and 3 reports. Vanity titles make people feel good and look nice on a resume, but that's about it.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#174

Post by Retric »

elevatortrim wrote: post #168
Swizec wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interesting, you've got it absolutely the wrong way around. Maybe. That's why you need to put your scope on the resume :) I had a CTO title 15 years ago. The complexity of what we were building was a joke compared to what I own now as a lowly "tech lead manager". And in fact back then I wouldn't even be able to comprehend how complex things can get.

That may be your anecdote but CTO at a 30-50 person scale up would typically have much more management/accounting/signature/high-stake conversation/... experience than a senior developer at google.

When you swap between 9 hats, you don’t get meaningful experience at any of those roles.

Instead you become a generalist which is only really needed at tiny organizations.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#175

Post by d_burfoot »

It's a bad idea to phrase advice as "Don't Do X", for most values of X that are often undertaken:

- Don't move to Detroit

- Don't go into academia

- Don't use dating apps

- Don't buy Google stock

It's most obvious for the last one: you should buy Google (or any other) stock if you think it's underpriced and sell it if you think it's overpriced. But even for the other advice, a kind of Efficient Market Hypothesis holds. If there were a massive exodus of people from academia, causing universities to increase salaries and reduce administrative burdens, going into academia might be great for the right people. For many people Detroit is a terrible city, but I know a guy who worked for the Tigers, and bought a large house for a small amount of money, and did a lovely job renovating it, so Detroit worked well for him.

Life is all about finding underpriced value: options that you will appreciate more than others, for whatever reason.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#176

Post by tomgp »

saghm wrote: post #116

> The pace of change in the last year has been completely crazy, and it’s not stopping. > But even if you don’t give in to the constant FOMO - it’s impossible to argue that the way we worked hasn’t changed. Almost every part of our work looks different, and will continue to evolve. My experience is anecdotal, but this seems to be overblown. I'd say that almost every part of my work looks pretty identical to how it di…

Yes. Also there's a weird thing going on where the claims are simultaneously that these tools are super easy to use and everyone and their dog is going to be using them to create awesome software and that it's only going to get easier to do so BUT ALSO that you have to immediately start using them or you'll get left behind. Why should we start now if they're going to be more powerful and more accesible in a years time? seems like the effort working with the imperfect exising version will be wasted.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#177

Post by abcde666777 »

halper wrote: post #4

I cannot be alone in feeling that titles (within "tech" in particular) are almost completely arbitrary? What constitutes a "senior", "lead", "principal" and "staff" X, respectively, has so much overlap that it really depends on the organisation. I myself have been called all of those things, but have honestly not been able to tell the difference: in some cases, I have had much more responsibility as a "senior backend…

I always think of the Gervais principle when it comes to titles - that they really just exist to provide illusory advancement and to get some of the minions to lord it over some of the other minions while the folks at the top of the organization benefit.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#178

Post by hintymad »

Isn't being an engineering manager about leverage? Someone needs to organize people, allocate resources, or even decide the direction of products. We may say that ICs can make equally good such decisions, but every company has a hierarchy and someone does call the shots. And for better or for worse, some people are indeed good at navigating company dynamics and driving an organization forward, even though they may suck at building. An example would be IBM's Watson Jr. He was known for being awkward at mastering IBM tech as a salesperson. Even in a holacratic company like Zappos or Valve, some people still manage, right?

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#179

Post by DDerTyp »

alephnerd wrote: post #55
UK-Al05 wrote: post #2

The document is comparing salaries of staff engineers, and EM's. In my experience staff engineer positions are even rarer then EM positions.

> In my experience staff engineer positions are even rarer then EM positions. Where do you work?!? If you are in Western Europe then the blogpost is irrelevant for you. The Western European market is weird.

Can you elaborate more about this? Why is it irrelevant in Western Europe?

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#180

Post by jackblemming »

halper wrote: post #4

I cannot be alone in feeling that titles (within "tech" in particular) are almost completely arbitrary? What constitutes a "senior", "lead", "principal" and "staff" X, respectively, has so much overlap that it really depends on the organisation. I myself have been called all of those things, but have honestly not been able to tell the difference: in some cases, I have had much more responsibility as a "senior backend…

It’s how good you are at politics, that’s it. Big modifier if you’re tall and attractive.
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