I would argue the high-end IC career path isn't really respected in general at F500. I have worked for multiple large public companies. Most of the time the highest tier IC role consisted of the grizzled veteran engineers who were there forever, but disliked managers (and management in general). They were usually a bit dis-disgruntled as well (probably because they were stuck in that role!). They were never promoted or moved into management, because they were too highly compensated to make it work.
Basically if you dont "hop" to management in the first 1-6 years into your career, it quickly becomes too late.
After years of discussion about this with my manager, I recently accepted a low level managerial role at my current company. It was a large step down title wise (from highest level IC title to low level manager title). The only reason I did this was because HR agreed to let me keep my current salary (albeit "frozen" until I get promoted)..
I found that in general the pay for entry level tech manager was a large pay-cut for me , but I was also under qualified for type of Director role.
Yeah I would never want to be a manager. My career is writing code/building software. I like doing that. Pay me according to my ability to ship good code and don't ever make me manage people please.
The thing is that you are almost never compensated on your ability to ship good code, you're compensated on your ability to create business value. More business value usually means owning and leading more scope, not better/more code.
> The thing is that you are almost never compensated on your ability to ship good code, you're compensated on your ability to create business value.
If I can be allowed to split hairs a little, ackshually you're compensated based on your level/title which sometimes, but not always (maybe not even often) is proportional to your ability to create business value. Companies like to say that they pay based on business value because it sounds good. But they don't have really great ways to measure that, especially if you're not in sales.
I'm not the person you responded to, but I realize this, and I realize that my career ambitions put a definite ceiling on my salary.
Which is fine! I'd rather have my current salary and not have to manage people. I wouldn't want a manager's job for twice my salary. It would make me unhappy, and a spare salary wouldn't make it up to me.
Absolutely. When I say I don't want to be in a management role, I mean I don't want to be in the role that most tech companies seem to call "management", which is usually someone mostly completely divorced from actual technical decisions.
Being a force multiplier by being technical leadership to other devs is fine by me. I just don't want to spend all day in an office managing upwards.
My point was that most corporations remove the option from high level individual contributors. The higher you go, the more the option is removed. I was directly told that I am more than qualified from a technical perspective to be a Director, but not qualified from an management perspective.
Teaching people management skills is probably a whole heck of a lot easier than teaching them technical skills, but companies don't see it that way. Companies will pay top dollar for a fresh Harvard MBA, and put them in-charge of a large technology thing they know little about, but reject the idea of a IC8 moving into that role.
Why wouldn't they allow an IC8 to move into a lower-level management position? It sounds like the option isn't removed, you just have to move downwards on the parallel track, to learn those things.
Imagine it the other way around; I would not expect the head of HR at my employer to move directly into a Staff Engineering position if they expressed interest in moving towards a technical role.
> Basically if you don't "hop" to management in the first 1-6 years into your career, it quickly becomes too late.
Agreed with this, but only for traditional management track. Like if you want to be a CEO of a F500, you need to hop on the management track early and spend the time rising through the ranks. But there is more flexibility in startup world. In a small growing company you can have 15+ of exp as IC but quickly become VP or C level if you show aptitude and the situation allows for it. And if you have success there, you have generalized management credibility.
Here you have motivated , respected, talented individuals who wants to take all of the things they have learned and apply it to a broader set of things across the company. They are literally asking to provide more value to the company by broadening the scope of their influence.
For a crappy sports analogy, its like never letting the MVP become a coach.
You really think making Lionel Messi or Christiano Ronaldo coaches would be a better use of their talents than having them play?
There's a reason athletes only become coaches after their prime. Once they can no longer be superstars on the field, they can try to pass on some knowledge to the next generation.
I don't really see how taking deep knowledge of stuff like databases and webservers and applying it to "broader sets of things" is useful. That's like taking rocket science knowledge and applying it to cooking. Sure, you may find some use for some stuff but the vast majority of your knowledge is just wasted now, it isn't being "applied to a broader set of things". It's just deteriorating.
Yes, you are exactly correct, MVP athletes (aka IC8s) CAN become coaches in their post-prime life. For a 20+ year developer, this is rarely possible.
Broader set of things != Different things.
So you don't think that moving a Distinguished NASA engineer with an illustrious 25 year career into management is a good idea? They arent moving fields, just positions within their field. Your cooking analogy doesn't apply.
The case example of this working well is Boeing, which was ran (top to bottom) mostly by engineers for a while.
Basically if you dont "hop" to management in the first 1-6 years into your career, it quickly becomes too late.
After years of discussion about this with my manager, I recently accepted a low level managerial role at my current company. It was a large step down title wise (from highest level IC title to low level manager title). The only reason I did this was because HR agreed to let me keep my current salary (albeit "frozen" until I get promoted)..
I found that in general the pay for entry level tech manager was a large pay-cut for me , but I was also under qualified for type of Director role.