71–80 of 292 posts
But often such teams in faang come up as a by product of someone’s empire building and that is unfortunate for others involved in it.
This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers. It’s part of an effort to have dedicated managers and dedicated engineers instead of hybrid roles. This is being sold as an efficiency win for the sake of the stock price but it’s really just moved a few people around with the TLMs now 100% focused on programming.
It sounds to me like Google is moving to a more typical "technical lead" model where leads have substantial authority and some mentorship responsibilities, but they're essentially an IC and someone else up the chain actually handles proper management. Informally, tech leads can gently chew out less senior devs, but if someone actually needs to be disciplined then the lead needs to talk to the manager. TLM is an odd r…
Of course, this can backfire in many ways. You end up wasting engineering talent, and as the organization grows, managers spend more time on paper-pushing than on creative work. And there's no shortage of engineers who are just bad at reading, talking to, and managing people.
But the huge perk of management is leverage. If you're technically competent and credible, and want something to happen, your team will see it your way. If you're a random "ideas guy" in an IC role, that's not a given.
Around 5 is the correct number for a first line manager of a technical team. Go to 10 and it’s impossible to keep track of things. The day has only so many hours. Managing takes time. For bigger teams (10+) you either need individuals who are very independent and driven, or have dependable line managers.
that described internal Apple hardware teams i was on for years, as having as flat as possible an org was a priority to prevent bureaucracy and fiefdom forming middle manager nonsense
Around 5 is the correct number for a first line manager of a technical team. Go to 10 and it’s impossible to keep track of things. The day has only so many hours. Managing takes time. For bigger teams (10+) you either need individuals who are very independent and driven, or have dependable line managers.
> Go to 10 and it’s impossible to keep track of things. The day has only so many hours. Managing takes time. I've actually had better experiences with higher employee:manager ratios for this reason. When the manager can't possibly be involved in everything they're forced to let go, delegate, and skip the management busywork. My worst experiences have been at companies with one manager per 2-3 employees and skip-level…
I met a long time Google employee this week interventions that most of the senior management were ex oracle people. It’s nearly 20 years since Google had a category defining product - they haven’t built or acquired a single thing that dominates in the same way that android, maps, search, docs, etc. has since about 2006. It figures.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This kinda brings up a question I've often thought about. Why is it that we structure growth in a company to be so biased towards moving into management roles? I mean there is the obvious part of the answer in that managers are the ones that are given the power to define that growth ladder, but I'm not sure this fully explains things. If people are transferring from technical positions to managerial positions then sh…
This hasn't been true in a lot of companies for like my entire career. You can move up as an ic. Titles like Staff, senior staff principal. A Staff and Sr manager would be paid the same
This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers. It’s part of an effort to have dedicated managers and dedicated engineers instead of hybrid roles. This is being sold as an efficiency win for the sake of the stock price but it’s really just moved a few people around with the TLMs now 100% focused on programming.
TLM role has always sounded like a trap to me, I would never say yes to it personally. I’m sure it’s sold as an expected 50% code, 50% management but everyone I’ve talked to who has been near it says the expectation is more like 80% code 80% management.
Impact and outcomes are far more important than outputs, so it makes sense to for you to spend a lot of time on that. But, when performing review time comes around, you’re still bounded by hard metrics around outputs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> overseeing 0 people is great. I'm not likely to take any position where I have to oversee more or less than that; I would have so many questions if I got an offer for a position where I had to oversee less than 0 people
Would that mean you have to undersee one or more people? cue rimshot
Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'
Under the sea