Comment by usrnm
2 years ago
This trope of "growing" from an engineer to a manager needs to die. I grow as an engineer when I learn new stuff or become better at building things. Becoming a manager is changing jobs, not growth in any meaningful way. Not even in salary in many places
Even in FAANG it's a promotion. If not immediately, the cap for ICs is much lower.
Principal engineer at FAANG (L8): likely one of the best engineers in the world.
Engineering director at FAANG (L8): manager who's been there for a while and is good at acquiring more reports.
As a ratio, there are far more eng directors to managers than principal engineers to engineers.
All that said, know what you want in your career. If you love building, build. If you want money, do management.
> If you want money, do management.
If you make it to my comment, please - do not go into management for the money. If you want to build, then remain an IC. If you want to grow other engineers, further THEIR career, make THEM better - go into management.
The friends of mine who ended up in management for the money and complain about their reports make me so angry.
I mean, this has a certain truth to it... but this isn't really a situation unique to management.
A lot of engineers, of all flavors, are at least partially in the field for the money. Maybe they enjoy their work, maybe they're good at it, but for a lot of people it was more of a plan C or D after the things they really wanted to do turned out to be something they couldn't make money at.
Some of them would rather be authors or musicians, some of them chemists or physicists, a number of them are just waiting to buy a goat farm upstate. If you include them people who would rather be engineering something else, but that something else doesn't pay the bills, it may be a majority of engineers who are in it for the money.
> please - do not go into management for the money
Please won’t do much, even if I agree. Incentives and all that.
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Guys, everybody goes into management for the money.
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If you go into any activity for the money, you'll ruin the activity.
Your point is that managers are more upwardly mobile, which is fair, but that doesn't mean when you make the switch it is a promotion. G9 IC -> M0 will not increase your salary. It does grant you more power, but that is not a promotion per se.
The other thing to watch out for is manager growth over the last 10-15 years was a result of the structural needs of an unprecedented tech bull run. Now that the industry has moved into belt-tightening mode, the heaviest scrutiny is falling on managers. The type of political games a typical 35 year-old EM (5 years coding, 10 years EM) may not be as effective as they were in the previous environment. There are a LOT of EMs getting pipped or knocked back to IC these days, whereas ICs with a bit of product/UX sense, ability to think a bit beyond their silo, and willing to work on "boring" business applications will continue to be highly valued, especially given the amount of dead weight that has found its way in by grinding leetcode.
That's a great insight. I hadn't considered how the bull run led to the current structure, as we switch from "keep this ship together while we grow" to driving operational efficiency.
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It’s true but for most people in practice they won’t make it to L8 either as IC or manager so it’s really more a question or do you want to finish your career as an L6 IC or manager.
Most people can get to L7 by mid 40s if not sooner. People who don't progress seem to do it based on choice (want less responsibility, unwilling to change teams to find more opportunities, etc). Careers don't end in people's 30s.
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You nailed it. The requirements spelled out in the career ladder for IC vs. manager at FANG is ludicrous.
During calibration the ladder generally isn't consulted but it could be weaponized at any time. It is quite intimidating.
It’s pretty obvious that if you want to climb the career ladder you’re most likely to succeed as a member of the group that defines the career ladder.
It really depends. Our company (FAANG equivalent) has a lots of high ICs. There are lots of high level ICs because there are far fewer Techlead Managers who covers both sides. But tl managers are way too hard so most ppl pick one track to stick with.
High level ICs have LOTs of weights on the technical directions. They are not replaceable by the managers.
I would also say that being an engineer at L8 is a meaningfully different set of skills than L7. The whole ‘what got you here won’t get you there idea’ starts at L7 for either track…
Changing job from being cleaner to programmer is also interesting wage but is not "growing into".
I don't think what you described is a promotion? M1 = IC6, M2 = IC7, etc as you said. As far as the number of directors and VPs, sure there are probably more but I would describe that more as "it is easier to get promoted as a manager than as an individual contributer past IC6"
However... This is starting to change. We now have engineers reporting to higher levels, so basically each manager has an equivalent IC reporting directly to them. In theory this means the numbers are more equivalent.
There's no money in the world that will want me attend meetings all day.
Converting from manager to engineer at the same level requires a special test in at least one FAANG company. Doesn't that mean going from manager to IC is a promotion? And then obviously the other way around must be a demotion?
> Even in FAANG it's a promotion.
No, it is not. You switch from L6 IC to L1 M (FB/Google scale). Compensation remains exactly the same.
> If not immediately, the cap for ICs is much lower.
This is different from management being a promotion...
Congratulations, you've been working as a baker for 10 years and have perfected the art of making bread. You have now been promoted to butcher.
Umm, haven’t you just been promoted to bakery manager?
The point is that the jobs are completely different. They require different skill sets.
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Hmmmm a butcher would be like a business analyst in the software development world maybe?
Both still put they hands on the product, but in completely different perspectives.
Maybe a store manager would be more applicable?
Perhaps a car analogy would clear things up?
I have a friend who got promoted from QA to HR.
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Instead of having been "promoted" to a shepherd?
Dammit. I was hoping for candlestick-maker.
I think it is growth or at least growth opportunity.
Acquiring incremental engineering skills is great and we should all do it. But let's admit that it's just that - incremental. You go from being a good engineer to slightly better engineer- something you already are.
When you pivot to management or something else that's more different to you - you are taking on a bigger challenge and there's no guarantee of success. In order to succeed you need to hone a whole different set of skills - and if you manage to do that, you will certainly have grown in a real way.
I totally get the sentiment that going into management isn't the only way to advance a career and I agree. I am just saying that those who take that path indeed open themselves up to a challenge and evolution.
You are taking on a different challenge, not a bigger challenge. Almost all of your comment could equally describe going from being an engineer to being a dog walker, or a sous chef, or a roofer. Entirely different, and in your new career your prior skills will rapidly atrophy and become marginal.
In my closing on 30-year career in this industry, "managers" have been the least important part of any team, and had the least impact on success or failure. I'm not anti-manager at all (although I have spent my entire career trying to stop people who think they are rewarding me or giving me a promotion by giving me more "manager" duties. I have zero interest in deciding compensation or going to more meetings), it just truly is a position that is the closest to fungible. Everyone fear mongers about AI replacing engineers, but in the real world it could far more easily replace manager level resources.
I’m with you here.
I spent ten years in my 20s grinding to become great at engineering. I don’t regret it at all. And then when I did get those skills, many people in my life around me didn’t give a fuck, because I was leaving money on the table by not chasing status and management promotions.
It’s allowed me to get to a really good position at an advanced R&D company.
But I still hear the acclaim afforded to those who continue to ascend the ladder, and it stings a bit.
I suppose that is just people needing to believe in those things, and I should let it go.
It’s complicated.
> "managers" have been the least important part of any team, and had the least impact on success or failure
I'd disagree...I think it can be difficult to see what the manager brings in when a team is good and runs well enough. It's a lot more obvious when you get a bad manager: the team stagnates, loses focus, valuable members will quit (there's the saying "employees don't quit their jobs, they quit their bosses"), recruiting also becomes harder.
There's too much to discuss in one comment, but managers that don't seem to be doing much while the team members are killing it are a precious breed and worth their weight in gold. An alternative way to look at it: they don't need to brag about being important, and have at least enough grasp of what their team does to not be standing in the way.
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You could say the same about a manager becoming an engineer
I am the person you are replying to and I totally agree.
Thing is, it's easier to wing your way through as a manager than an engineer.
Isn't that a growth removal?
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I just don't like how often it's implied that management is the inevitable next rung on the ladder after staff or lead engineer. As if I'm not ambitious enough because I just want to be a good engineer. Employers sometimes dangle the management carrot in front of me, and some people have been outright confused when I tell them I don't covet a management role.
> Not even in salary in many places
What needs to die is this trope. Few places cut salaries when people move to EM role. This might be true for some big tech companies, but even then it's only in the beginning. If you look at companies that have unified levels for SDEs and EMs (Google, Amazon), you can see that on the same level EMs have slightly higher TC.
Not to mention that there's a whole world outside of big tech where moving to management is considered a promotion (and often the only way to grow, because dual career ladder is not implemented everywhere). The cases where EMs make more than SDEs are really way more common than the reverse situation.
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I don't get this comment. I guess because I think we are not aligned on what a manager is or maybe our engineering styles are very different. For me a manager is someone who leads through influence, in engineering managers lead towards an engineering solution. To me it just feels like a different way to solve the same class of problems, just bigger. I absolutely feel like I am doing engineer, the difference being solving bigger problems and a lot fewer problems are being directly solved by me. How do you see a management position?
IMHO engineers should also (and should be expected to) lead through influence. In my mind, as engineers grow they should be expected to tackle problems and influence solutions of increased scope, complexity and ambiguity.
Junior engineers should be able to drive smaller, well scoped projects.
Senior+ engineers should be expected to tackle complex, cross-org, ill-defined technical challenges, examples include technical mergers of company acquisitions, large scale migrations of business critical systems, technical design of big bets (also analysis on which big bets to take), evaluate new technologies/platforms, dev tooling to multiply productivity, etc
A lot of this requires buy-in and stakeholder management to succeed.
Overall I agree, but it's important to realize how easily the impact metrics are gamed. Sometimes the hard parts are in the technical details of programming a specific problem, and doing large scale cross-org collaboration is far more well defined. Or even worse, cross-org collab can just be pure noise by people with no technical understanding defining goals and projects and promoting each other.
So much damage is done by the wrong people being constantly rewarded and promoted for creating noise by "leading" large pointless projects instead of doing the real work. Sometimes I've seen the new hire engineer solving the critical issues like problems in a data pipeline by collaborating across teams is actually having more impact that any of the senior engineers or management bsers.
Right, and in my company that is a manager. An engineer who is good at leading through influence. I am confused as to what other kind of management there is. I guess there is people management, hiring and firing kind of things, but I think that is not what we are talking about on HN.
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It may depend on the company.
On some it might be an architect level engineer who also manages the team. In others it'll be nothing more than a middle manager that only will see code on their spare time. And it can be everything in between.
So depending on the kind of move it will not have anything to do with engineering and everything to do with managing. And that's HARD. Changing your whole set of skills for another overnight it's not pleasant.
I am beginning to think all the management posts are bullshit to some degree. Management is nor an easily definable skillset, and neither is it a well-defined role.
Yes and no. It's a common trope at many tech companies that these are two completely separate tracks, with no special upside to either.
But then, here's the reality: any large company will have a new for an army of directors and VPs, compared to only a handful of ultra-senior, visionary engineers. Take Google and compare the ratio of Jeff Dean-type folks to senior managerial staff collecting similar paychecks.
So yeah, if your goal is to retire early without depending too much on luck or on being exceptional, management is your career growth path. For better or worse.
> I grow as an engineer when I learn new stuff or become better at building things. Becoming a manager is changing jobs, not growth in any meaningful way.
That's a very linear outlook. One can also grow be expanding the base of skills one has, and that often comes by shifted to adjacent jobs where you can capitalize on your first skill. There's some benefit in engineers who want to grow by transitioning to manager: nobody wants a non-engineer as your manager/leader - how would they understand your work or attract fantastic talent?
Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying for an engineer to grow one has to become a manager, but it is a legitimate strategy.
in a lot of places they refuse to let engineers become managers. Technical experts, distinguished engineers, CTOs, etc, but management is distinctly different then writing code. Human beings are not computer programs. Being good at one doesn't mean you'd be good at the other whatsoever.
If it makes you feel any better, in many big companies that's already the case. Talking about modern Big Tech, not dinosaurs like Oracle or IBM.
At my company (which I feel more comfortable not disclosing), the scale looks like this:
senior engineer == engineering manager.
staff engineer == senior engineering manager.
senior staff engineer == director / VP
This is in terms of scope, responsibility, salary, whom you report to and on which level... everything.
I think this makes a lot of sense.
>not dinosaurs like Oracle
I doubt Mark Reinhold, Brian Goetz or John Rose are undervalued at Oracle because of them not being managers.
Sure, but what I meant is that they might (and I could be wrong) having the old school mindset where your manager is your boss. I worked at Ericsson and I can confirm that's the case over there. Instead, manager should be someone on your "level", just doing different things. We like to say: engineer leads craft and influences people, manager leads people and influences craft.
I was about to write the exact same comment. I wish engineering experience was more recognized, especially in software fields.
It's a different set of tasks and skulls but having a background in the relevant domain is in my opinion required. Working in ML, having a manager that doesn't understand statistical significance, or even key metrics like precision and recall is a recipe for unhappy employees and bad decisions.
I think that this has been somewhat nullified by the changes over the last few years where managers are supposed to be people managers exclusively, while high level ICs supposed to create direction and evaluate technical merit.
It is a difficult balance.
Agreed. I’ve done both, and while a good Engineering Manager has to be a good engineer (how is one supposed to supervise something they don’t understand), mastering one skill set more or adding a second one isn’t more or less “growth”.
Changing and growing aren’t mutually exclusive.
While you can absolutely be a manager without extensive IC experience, most people will benefit greatly from having deep IC experience before becoming a manager.
Nobody goes from engineer to CEO with a million dollar golden parachute for doing a terrible job. As an engineer you work your ass off for someone else to take all the credit and leave you homeless.
It’s growing - hell it’s escaping Getting as far away from working constantly for no reward and more goddam leatcode Interviews where 25yo who know nothing gatekeep your career - maybe you live in a different reality than I do, but I can always just build for myself at home.
People do not go from an engineer to CEO full stop. And also, plenty of CEOs with a million dollar golden parachutes do terrible jobs. So does large parts of management.
The CEO of SABRE (biggest airline res company) went in 15 years from Software Engineer to CEO. He was then forced out when he objected to the company becoming public again (owned by Hedge Fund). I am sure its not common though.
I have seen this happen. software engineer -> president of a billion dollar company -> CEO of another >billion dollar company.
When I gradually became a manager, I continued to be better at building things, not only with my hands, but also by aligning and enabling other engineers and entire teams. So in a grand scheme of things it is the same way, with greater impact and responsibility.
I think of it as horizontal vs vertical. An IC grows horizontally over their career as they learn new technical things. A manager grows vertically as they move up the chain and are managing more and more people.
Well ... maybe it's not a "trope"?
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