can someone with experience doing this shine some light? i have been offered this type of role from engineer to 50/50 (as i feel it) or 80/20 (as they say) IC and managing. in a series C startup. i feel like it’s never good to context switch. i never seen a tech lead or manager who did well both roles at once. am i crazy to think that the tech lead or manager role should be 100%? either go the IC track or the manager track. but i lack evidence to substantiate this idea of mine.
Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
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Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#82This 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.
GOOG has made a systemic push to eliminate the role starting ~3 years ago. At that time my M was a staff level IC TLM with 4 reports who was forcibly converted to EM.
In those last 3 years I've only seen TLMs used to assist an overloaded EM.
The pattern I've seen is something like:
Principal EM
|- Staff EM (7 reports, project A)
|- Staff EM (8 reports, project B)
|- Staff IC (projects A, B, C)
|- Senior IC (projects A, B)
|- Senior IC (project C)
|- Mid level IC (project C)
|- Mid level IC (project C)
So the Principal EM deputizes Senior IC on project C as a TLM until things have changed enough that there can be a dedicated EM. Eventually the TLM converts to EM, a new EM is brought in, or there's a reorg, etc.
Of the two times I saw saw it happen locally, both converted back to ICs after a year or two and noted that the role felt like being 70% IC and 70% EM.
Nowadays the TLM role doesn't exist so the principal would delegate most of the technical responsibilities of the M role, giving them nearly full control of project C, but would not give them a formal role. (I've been that senior IC for project C.)
(Edit for formatting.)
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#83Im convinced the big tech firms are so overly bloated simply because they do not possess high-quality leadership at the top who are able to clearly distill a vision of where they want their sub-ordinates to go.
That's not to say it's easy - its absolutely not. But Apple is living off of Steve Job's visionary prowess and continues to do so.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#84can someone with experience doing this shine some light? i have been offered this type of role from engineer to 50/50 (as i feel it) or 80/20 (as they say) IC and managing. in a series C startup. i feel like it’s never good to context switch. i never seen a tech lead or manager who did well both roles at once. am i crazy to think that the tech lead or manager role should be 100%? either go the IC track or the manager…
I’m in this position now. The longer I’ve been in it, I’ve come to realize can be summarized as:
You experience some the benefits of being a manager but bear all the responsibilities of managing others. It becomes challenging to make sound judgments when you must consider two different perspectives of a problem. Essentially, you’re taking on the duties of two jobs. I’ve found it incredibly difficult to step back and allow the team to make decisions without my input. My technical bias compels me to intervene when I perceive a decision as clearly incorrect. However, this approach hinders growth and may be perceived as micromanagement. While it’s a challenging position, it’s an excellent opportunity to explore management and determine if it’s a long-term career path you’re interested in.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
At that ratio a technical manager should be first on every code review, should be testing the hell out of everything, and should be sitting in design reviews catching bugs well before they hit the IC's plates.
With 2 reports one definitely has time for IC work. At 4-5 is where it gets tricky.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#86The way the execs talk down to employees now is really depressing to read about. That's a really unfortunate culture change since I was there.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#87The way the execs talk down to employees now is really depressing to read about. That's a really unfortunate culture change since I was there.
I was there 2013 to 2017 and it was a pretty big shift start to finish just in that window.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
What do those roles do? Where I work there's a managerial track and a technical track, but if you actually read the job descriptions the technical track is basically either the same as management track, or a devrel role (effectively managing people outside the company).
Ic role has bigger scope of projects. Makes technical decisions. They're not writing performance reports or doing any people management tasks.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#89This 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.
But were all the other managers in the team in a TLM role?
The problem I foresee here is, there would be escalation meetings and all the non-technical managers would sit back and point fingers at the TLMs until they leave.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#90The 35% reduction refers to the number of managers who oversee fewer than three people, according to a person familiar with the matter. If you oversee 0-2 people, in most cases that’s probably not an efficient ratio. How did Google get so many folks in that position in the first place? And I assume the other 65% take up the slack to fluff their teams? Or what? Leave the other 65% managing 0-2 people?
IMO, overseeing 0 people is great. I'm not likely to take any position where I have to oversee more or less than that; although I'm willing to compromise and oversee one person where they're actually independent and I don't have to do much overseeing.
Overseeing 0 people is great if your role is an individual contributor. If your role is a manager and there is no one for you to manage, it would seem that your role is redundant.