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Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook

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Re: Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook

#61

Post by quickthrower2 »

h1n99 wrote: post #22
ramesh31 wrote: post #2

After ten years of reading these articles and imagining what it would be like to reach that level, I now find myself there and asking "what next?". What is the path for a staff level IC maxed out on the payscale? Seeking principal is a political battle I have no interest in. And management simply isn't in my skillset. Am I stuck just slinging Javascript into retirement? Are there any other lateral moves that could pr…

I’m one level ahead of you (L7) but, like, why does there need to be something “next”? I’ll make a seven-figure TC this year. That’s enough! I spent about $50k last year, and I live in New York. My manager talks about getting me to L8 all the time and it’s exhausting. I’m done! I’ve won the income game! She is very career oriented and cares about climbing the ladder, I do not. I’ve never actually cared about “career…

The $50k spend is interesting with NYC rents being so high, apparently

Re: Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook

#62

Post by quickthrower2 »

astrange wrote: post #44
giantg2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at job applications. Some ask if you've ever been arrested or charged with a crime - not convicted even. Guess what, you answer yes for some stupid summary offense like having a dog off a leash and your application is in the garbage. I see tons of bias in hiring too. What about people that take a break from working due to childcare, medical issues, etc? They struggle. There's a never ending amount of those stori…

> It seems like many places in Europe have better options for second chances from the legal perspective. Perhaps better from a financial standpoint with the support programs too. One reason Europe doesn't have startups is that it's so shameful for your company to fail that nobody would ever consider risking it.

Europe has startups

Re: Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook

#64

Post by cebert »

r2_pilot wrote: post #25
h1n99 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m one level ahead of you (L7) but, like, why does there need to be something “next”? I’ll make a seven-figure TC this year. That’s enough! I spent about $50k last year, and I live in New York. My manager talks about getting me to L8 all the time and it’s exhausting. I’m done! I’ve won the income game! She is very career oriented and cares about climbing the ladder, I do not. I’ve never actually cared about “career…

I'm not jealous (we've got a great work/life balance and a good mission), and I've heard of those compensation levels before, but something about the way you said "merely 400k" made me realize that those single salaries are more than my entire team(5 sysadmins and a manager)'s compensation.

400k isn’t that outrageous for higher level IC positions, especially in the NYC market.

Re: Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook

#65

Post by foobarian »

h1n99 wrote: post #36
scsilver wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you like another mentee?

I think I’m actually a pretty bad mentor! I can’t really do the career or manager interaction stuff well because I don’t care about it personally and I don’t have any problems myself with my manager being incompetent or changing all the times. I think that’s correlated with my somewhat unintentional success, but “have a better manager” or “don’t get reorged by directors playing game of thrones” isn’t actionable advic…

Well if not mentee how about some free money for referring a new hire :-D

Re: Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook

#66

Post by giantg2 »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #57
giantg2 wrote: post #26

The real lesson is to join a company poised for rapid growth (bonus points if it turns into a mainstream name like Facebook) and getting lucky as they expand. Try that at a mature company and you'll get nowhere. Do it at the small companies that never blow up and you'll get nowhere. Even if you're in the right company at the right time, there's a good chance someone else will be given the opportunity over you.

I agree with this directionally but think you're a little over-pessimistic. First, IME it suffices to join an organization poised for rapid growth. This can still happen in large tech companies. Second, while luck matters, there's also stuff you can do to increase your chances of being picked for career growth roles. I'm at a growth company. Recently a relatively new engineer was picked to lead a project over some mo…

I guess degree of pessimism is an opinion that depends on how shitty one's experience has been.

Re: Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook

#67

Post by cebert »

giantg2 wrote: post #32
ramesh31 wrote: post #2

After ten years of reading these articles and imagining what it would be like to reach that level, I now find myself there and asking "what next?". What is the path for a staff level IC maxed out on the payscale? Seeking principal is a political battle I have no interest in. And management simply isn't in my skillset. Am I stuck just slinging Javascript into retirement? Are there any other lateral moves that could pr…

If you're maxed out on pay, maybe retire early and do something you enjoy? I'm stuck as a mid-level making below median dev salary at a not great comapny and I will never be anything more. Eventually you come to terms with it... mostly at least

Where do you think you’re getting stuck?

Re: Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook

#68

Post by ditonal »

cebert wrote: post #60
yodsanklai wrote: post #51

Why the assumption that everybody should grow? Some people are perfectly fine as SWE and don't want to become manager, tech lead or org leader. In some companies, you can have a very high salary as a SWE and still learn new things every day.

You have to be concerned about age discrimination or assumptions based on your career trajectory at some point if you stay in a lower level IC position. If you’re in your mid forties, still “just” a software engineer, and interviewing for new positions, this will catch up with you. How do you explain having 15-20 years experience as a software developer with no career progression?

First, moving from an engineering role to a management role is not "career progression", it's a lateral career switch.

Secondly, you don't have to explain anything. Smart hiring managers will understand that you focused your career mastering a craft and that you're still working on that craft you mastered. As for the dumb hiring managers, it's best if you can avoid working for them. One thing you'll learn as you get older is that you can't please everyone all the time and if someone is foolish enough to hold stupid things against you, good riddance to bad rubbish. If you look around a bit, you'll find there's far, far more opportunities for intelligent old coders than unintelligent old managers.

Re: Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook

#69

Post by angarg12 »

mertd wrote: post #3

The article does mention this but worth noting that riding two rocket ships back to back is not going to be a typical career experience for majority of people. So this doesn't strike me as a typical career growth story.

The equivalent financial advice would be "win the lottery". Not very actionable.

Re: Engineer’s guide to career growth: Advice from my time at Stripe and Facebook

#70

Post by cebert »

ditonal wrote: post #68
cebert wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be concerned about age discrimination or assumptions based on your career trajectory at some point if you stay in a lower level IC position. If you’re in your mid forties, still “just” a software engineer, and interviewing for new positions, this will catch up with you. How do you explain having 15-20 years experience as a software developer with no career progression?

First, moving from an engineering role to a management role is not "career progression", it's a lateral career switch. Secondly, you don't have to explain anything. Smart hiring managers will understand that you focused your career mastering a craft and that you're still working on that craft you mastered. As for the dumb hiring managers, it's best if you can avoid working for them. One thing you'll learn as you get…

You don’t think not even progressing to a senior engineering role or lead engineer role after two decades in the profession would be a red flag? These are still IC roles, just more senior. I would sure have a lot of questions at least.
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