Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)
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Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)
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Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)
#2Discussed, a bit, at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32752
Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)
#3I’m in a senior level engineering role at one of the big tech companies. I was more than happy to receive the promotion, but the time I spent coding has certainly decreased a large chunk. I spend a lot of my time now facilitating projects across organizations, providing guidance to more junior engineers on architecture, sending emails and status updates, etc. at least that’s the norm on my current team.
Not long ago, I would be heads down in code all day everyday. My world was laser focused on getting out 1-2 code reviews a day, shipping small features. It paid substantially less, but I really wasn’t responsible for projects or deliveries. Business people want a feature? Great... here’s a t-shirt size estimate. Heh.
Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)
#4Thankfully, many if not most top tech companies in the valley realize this and have parallel management and IC tracks (at least for software engineers), with compensation the same.
That said, even as an IC, at higher levels the scope of impact you're expected to deliver at some point exceeds what one person working alone can have, so there's still lots of people leadership skills needed to advance: working cross-functionally and setting direction, communication, and ultimately influencing others to jump onboard and help you out.
(Note that this is different from people management -- e.g. formal coaching, performance reviews, dealing with HR/org/budget issues, etc.)
Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)
#5Thankfully, many if not most top tech companies in the valley realize this and have parallel management and IC tracks (at least for software engineers), with compensation the same. That said, even as an IC, at higher levels the scope of impact you're expected to deliver at some point exceeds what one person working alone can have, so there's still lots of people leadership skills needed to advance: working cross-func…
Many in theory have parallel tracks but in practice it seems either the vast majority choose to go into management or that it takes a more exceptional individual to progress in the IC track (my money is on #2). IMO you don’t really need to be an above average person to reach the second layer of management, just put in your time and not fuck up, but everyone I know who hit the same level as IC was exceptionally bright and was like that long before they hit that level
Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)
#6Thankfully, many if not most top tech companies in the valley realize this and have parallel management and IC tracks (at least for software engineers), with compensation the same. That said, even as an IC, at higher levels the scope of impact you're expected to deliver at some point exceeds what one person working alone can have, so there's still lots of people leadership skills needed to advance: working cross-func…
Many in theory have parallel tracks but in practice it seems either the vast majority choose to go into management or that it takes a more exceptional individual to progress in the IC track (my money is on #2). IMO you don’t really need to be an above average person to reach the second layer of management, just put in your time and not fuck up, but everyone I know who hit the same level as IC was exceptionally bright…
In my company it's certainly the case that in order to progress on the technical track you need to be extremely good and more importantly on the right projects. I see a lot of mediocre people advance on the management track but only very few advance above a certain level on the technical track. Considering that salary is directly tied to a person's rank I think it's a very rational decision to go into management even if that's not your inclination.
Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many in theory have parallel tracks but in practice it seems either the vast majority choose to go into management or that it takes a more exceptional individual to progress in the IC track (my money is on #2). IMO you don’t really need to be an above average person to reach the second layer of management, just put in your time and not fuck up, but everyone I know who hit the same level as IC was exceptionally bright…
In my company it's certainly the case that in order to progress on the technical track you need to be extremely good and more importantly on the right projects. I see a lot of mediocre people advance on the management track but only very few advance above a certain level on the technical track. Considering that salary is directly tied to a person's rank I think it's a very rational decision to go into management even…
This really depends on the company. I know senior ICs who make a bit more money than the managers they report to.
Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my company it's certainly the case that in order to progress on the technical track you need to be extremely good and more importantly on the right projects. I see a lot of mediocre people advance on the management track but only very few advance above a certain level on the technical track. Considering that salary is directly tied to a person's rank I think it's a very rational decision to go into management even…
This really depends on the company. I know senior ICs who make a bit more money than the managers they report to.
But my guess is that in 5 years their manager will be making more than the senior IC
Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)
#9In my previous company all the senior engineers took a few juniors under their umbrella and had very informal one-on-ones with them, just to bypass the troubles with non-technical managers. Hereby I as senior could give practical advices, eg how to deal with politics, without having to go into politics, excel and powerpoint and meeting-hell by myself.
This way the good senior devs didn't had to be promoted to management roles they didn't want, and the bad devs didn't get promoted to senior not to fuck up the juniors with bad advice.
Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)
#10Thankfully, many if not most top tech companies in the valley realize this and have parallel management and IC tracks (at least for software engineers), with compensation the same. That said, even as an IC, at higher levels the scope of impact you're expected to deliver at some point exceeds what one person working alone can have, so there's still lots of people leadership skills needed to advance: working cross-func…
It's _vastly_ harder to get ahead on the "engineering" track. At Google, for instance, it's to the point where as a manager you barely need to have a pulse to get promoted (as long as your reports are any good), whereas on the technical ladder promotions to Staff level and above are stupid hard and downright nondeterministic.
That's why many engineers there, who have little to no leadership skills or inclinations, end up being managers: it's simply much easier to get ahead on the management track, comparatively speaking. There are simply a lot more senior managers than there are comparatively senior (by comp, the only metric that really matters) engineers, and you aren't competing against as strong a set of peers.