The Evolution of Management: Transitioning Up the Ladder

https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3350548

by amortize • 7 years ago

131 57 7 years ago

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malvosenior• 7 years ago

For a slightly more humorous (but very real) take on the management ladder, I highly recommend The Gervais Principle:

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

In my experience it's been dead on accurate.

kitsune_• 7 years ago

Haha, what a cynical, bleak and fascinating read.

RyanHamilton• 7 years ago

Interesting. Thanks.

stakhanov4• 7 years ago

Is being promoted from individual contributor to manager still a thing?

Certainly the mobility from engineer to manager is something that I haven't witnessed "in the wild" ever, after 10 years in the business and having seen half a dozen organizations; neither with myself, nor with my peers.

What I predominantly see is a caste system where engineers are the lower caste and MBA-types are the higher caste, and members of the lower caste aren't taken seriously when voicing suggestions and opinions regarding business direction and management and also certainly don't stand a chance of being moved into any positions where they would meaningfully influence business direction on an ongoing basis.

There is an exception, though, which is that female engineers may still get promoted into management (...not going to speculate on reasons right now).

Also, what I've sometimes seen work is a lateral move followed by a vertical move, say from engineering to sales, and then from sales into management.

Ozzie_osman2• 7 years ago

Where have you worked? There's been a direct path from engineer to manager at every company I've worked at. I've mostly worked at Silicon Valley companies, some were venture-backed and some were simply aspiring to be such.

In some companies, that was a promotion (with a pay increase), in others, it was a lateral transition (and of course, at some it was a promotion but the company pretended it was a lateral transition).

Ironically, I did get an MBA but after graduating I was coding before transitioning into management, and I'm not sure the MBA degree had much to do with that transition.

Dual-ladder type systems for technical people are pretty common in the software industry, and, when applied correctly, one of the things I love most about it. I wrote about that: https://hackernoon.com/why-all-engineers-must-understand-man...

stakhanov4• 7 years ago

...I know that this concept exists, but I've only ever encountered it as a theoretical concept that certain HR departments will pay lip service to, but the reality, in my experience, is different.

For example I have worked in a top-tier investment bank. One year, they had a particularly bad year (because markets were just bad), so while traders in some cases still got bonuses, nobody in the entire Technology Division (since they were seen as being more replaceable) got a bonus. They made up for it by giving everybody a bump in their title (with no bump in pay). That kind of BS is my primary association of what it looks like in practice when people climb the "technical" ladder (rather than the "management" ladder).

In my mind, a carreer progression would have to imply that, as time goes by, your options of things you might do in the organization expand and, since you get to pick and choose from a wider pool, you make choices that are in your best interest meaning more money and more opportunity to influence the direction of the business and all that.

It works that way for management, as the relationships you build with people become an asset that starts paying dividends over time.

For engineering, it works in reverse: Your options become less with time, not more. The determinant of any move you might make within the organization is not so much the opporunity around you doing something new, but the risk around you no longer continuing with what you leave behind. (Or at least that's the way that organizations will mistakenly see it). Say you've built a database that underlies reporting infrastructure that underlies all decision-making in the entire company. Bringing in somebody else to look after the database is a risk that a company usually won't want to take. Ramping up somebody else to learn about the system is a cost they won't want to incur. Congratulations: You're stuck looking after that database for the rest of your time at that organization. That's the reward you get for having done a good job at building that database.

In addition, I would say that over the 10 years that I've been in industry I have seen a cultural change around non-engineering professions moving in on decision-making-territory that would have previously been an engineer's. I'm talking about business managers, designers, product managers, product designers, it infrastructure architects, what have you. 10 years ago, you would have been presented with a problem which, at the face of it, was technical in nature like "build a database and some reporting infrastructure around it". You would have picked a database management system, built the data ingestion infrastructure, created e-mail reports which you designed yourself, etc. etc. Nowadays, you go to person X enterprise IT architect to have them decide which database you can use. You go to a designer to tell you which font to use on the report. You go to a product manager to tell you how often to send the e-mail reports and what the signup-flow should look like, etc. etc. -- Congratulations you have just been reduced to a mere machine executing a business process, not making a single meaningful decision for yourself, and as a result your social standing is barely above that of a machine.

dsunshine• 7 years ago

It depends on the organization but I see it a lot in consultancies; as consultants build client-facing skills alongside their technical knowledge they often move into leadership roles.

In the corporate world, I've seen both. However, the better managers that I've worked for have had recent engineering experience or at least can follow a technical discussion.

ryandrake• 7 years ago

I’ve seen the exact opposite in some companies. Great technical people who have no business managing, suddenly becoming a manager. It goes like this: Person X is much better performing than the average bear. Company wants to reward Person X, but he or she is already at the max level for a technical individual contributor: “Senior Software Engineer” which is one level above entry level “Software Engineer”. Since the company has no career growth for techies past Senior Software Engineer, they say “OK We are going to reward you for doing such a good job: you are now knighted as a manager.” They bob the sword up and down. “Now go off and do this entirely different thing than you’ve been doing!” Unsurprisingly, a lot of these new managers aren’t really great at managing.

I’ve had sw team managers open up to me and admit they didn’t want to be managing at all and hate it but that’s the only way to advance in your career so they do it. I’ve also seen mediocre engineers who have great personal and presentation skills (or potential) languish as “3rd engineer from the left” because they weren’t Wizard enough to be promoted to management. There’s a huge skill/function mismatch.

steveklabnik2• 7 years ago

Mozilla has two parallel tracks, the management track and the IC track. Both have their own levels, but you can switch between them. I've known several people that started off on the IC track and moved to the management track.

lrem• 7 years ago

In Google I've seen people moving from IC to manager and vice versa. Some times repeatedly.

Ididntdothis• 7 years ago

From what I have seen the caste system exists in companies where the tech part is not the main business. I work in medical devices and there the programmers are viewed as replaceable and don’t have much potential to move up. At least I haven’t seen it so far. You either have to be MBA or sales. Some medical guys also get promoted. In software companies I have seen programmers move up a lot.

That’s Why I recommend people to try to work for a company where the CEO has some understanding and appreciation of your work and doesn’t see it just as a cost factor that better get offshored and outsourced. There are always exceptions but in general you will have a much better life and career in such companies.

pjc50• 7 years ago

Happened to me when my manager left at my previous job. No training or support came with it, sadly, so I went back to IC level at my current job which is much more comfortable and actually better paid.

where they would meaningfully influence business direction on an ongoing basis

If your business is "customer led", as lots are, then it's the people nearest to the customer in the sales and account management pipeline that are directing it.

Swizec• 7 years ago

I work in startups. Fighting against becoming a manager is a daily battle. And my job still looks way more managey than it used to. It just sort of sneaks up on you.

I used to get to code. Now I spend half my time running projects, pushing back on specs, interviewing people, mentoring juniors, running meetings, discussing team structure, and all sorts of things that aren’t coding.

shantly• 7 years ago

There is an exception, though, which is that female engineers may still get promoted into management (...not going to speculate on reasons right now).

This is one of those things I'd not go out of my way to bring up, for obvious reasons, but yes, I've noticed this too. Best I can tell it's because more of them (as a percentage) have entering management as a primary goal and actively work toward it from day one, which just means that, for most non-FAANG companies, they're playing the making-money-and-gaining-status game smarter than their male peers, so it's not even a dig, really—kinda the opposite.

cuddlybacon• 7 years ago

My current boss was promoted from engineering. The boss he replaced was also promoted from engineering. My boss's boss was promoted from engineering as well. He went directly from engineer to second-tier manager.

I work for a Silicon Valley based company with 10k employees.

encoderer• 7 years ago

In SFBA it happens all the time.

rb808• 7 years ago

I've switched from manager and back. Usually there is a real shortage of devs that want to be manager. If you're inclined, ask your boss for some responsibility, maybe with a grad or junior dev, I'm sure you'll get it. After that work on bigger projects.

yibg• 7 years ago

I’ve very rarely seen engineering managers that didn’t come from being an engineer. Most lower level manager interviews (at least in the valley) still involve a significant amount of technical questions to weed out people that don’t have a solid engineering background.

If you are talking more about executives this has also been true at places I’ve been. Engineering VPs mostly were also engineers at one point, although likely long ago. Conversely I’ve known very few engineering managers / directors / VPs with MBAs.

pmiller2• 7 years ago

It exists at my company, for sure. In the past year, I’ve seen 3 engineers on my team or closely affiliated teams start up the management track. We even have a 3 month trial period for IC’s turned manager. During this period, the new manager is mentored by an existing manager. At the end of the 3 months, they can decide to continue as a full manager or step back down to IC, no questions asked.

gfs78• 7 years ago

In service companies (consulting firms, software factories) the path is from business related positions (BA, sales, etc.) to management. Here devs as seen as cogs.

In tech companies the path is from dev to management. Here the BAs and the like are seen as cogs.

But it´s always from individual contributor to middle manager. From there and up the class system seems to be at work as it has always been.

UncleMeat• 7 years ago

This is exactly the opposite of my experience.

I'm a manager. I was originally an IC. My boss, his boss, and his boss were all originally ICs. Past that I don't know their background well enough to know whether they were originally ICs or not.

pm906• 7 years ago

There is an exception, though, which is that female engineers may still get promoted into management (...not going to speculate on reasons right now).

Then don't bring it up. Just suggesting this seems unnecessary and seems to be begging a misogynist interpretation.

gizmo6864• 7 years ago

Parent brought up a politically charged topic to the extent nessasary to qualify an otherwise false statement. In doing so, they took care to avoid the heart of the polical issue.

What more do you want? To allow charged topics to infect more and more otherwise non charged topics, and bring every conversation down to their level?

lostphilosopher• 7 years ago

I was a Senior Engineer, was promoted to Manager, then to a Manager of Managers role. No MBA.

I work for a Fortune 10 company. This is the path almost all of my peers followed. Some version of this track existed in every company I've worked for.

Change companies? Or accept some open minded mentorship from the people who succeeded in this track at your company. (I encounter a fair amount of folks who want leadership roles but are going about it super wrong...)

stuff4ben• 7 years ago

Having made the switch from IC to IT manager and now back to IC (at a different company), I want to add in a few insights of my own: 1. It's probably not a good idea to get into management if your team is a remote team. 2. If you're managing a remote team for the first time and your boss is also colocated with your remote team, make sure he/she is not a micromanager. 3. Make sure you're talking to your team and checking in on them. The introvert part of me had a hard time with this. 4. Yes, it's ok to interrupt your smart, gets-shit-done employees, especially if you've haven't talked to them in days. 5. Make sure you set a vision to your ICs and hold them accountable to that vision. It helps if they contributed to making this vision with you. 6. Yadda yadda yadda, I'm happy being an IC again :)

ensiferum• 7 years ago

How does one transition into management without prior management experience? This is a genuine question I've been wanting to move out of engineering for a while but it's been very hard so far to get into non-eng positions. (No luck so far).

Do you just talk to your direct supervisior and lay out your career path wants or do you need to look for another position at some other shop or what's a working strategy here?

steveklabnik2• 7 years ago

I recently transitioned to being a product manager. In my organization, that doesn't mean I have any reports, but I am responsible for what my team does and why we're doing it. (They have an engineering manager that determines the 'how we're doing it' and all engineers report to the EM.)

In my case, it was a sort of give and take in both directions. They needed a PM, and I had been doing some product work, mostly in the open source world, and wanted to give it a try professionally. They were explicit that being a first time PM was okay, and I was that I would be one.

I've been enjoying it a lot so far.

mwcampbell• 7 years ago

That sounds a lot like the role at Microsoft that was historically called "program manager", though some orgs there are starting to call that role "product manager" as well.

Disclosure: I'm a dev at Microsoft, on the Windows accessibility team.

xythian• 7 years ago

Yes. You should be having this kind of career conversation with your current manager. Together, you should be able to find opportunities to grow and test out manager-like skills (e.g., hiring and managing an intern, mentoring junior devs, becoming a team lead, etc).

Camille Fournier's book, The Manager's Path, is a good read for learning about some of the common transitions from IC to manager to executive in software engineering.

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920056843.do

inerte• 7 years ago

Yes, talk to your manager. They will hopefully either mentor/coach you and/or find people to do it.

If you don't let them know, once a manager role opens in your org, even if your name comes up as a potential person, anyone else who has asked for it and is being groomed to become a manager will probably get ahead of you. So, be that person instead.

vkou• 7 years ago

How does one transition into management without prior management experience?

You don't.

You build management experience.

1. Manage an intern.

2. Manage a junior's project.

3. Lead a three-person project.

4. Fill in for your manager's organizational work (planning meetings, higher level status syncs, etc) when they are on vacation.

Talk to your manager about doing these things, and why you want to do them. If the conversation doesn't go well, then you're in the wrong org to make it work.

cmdshiftf4• 7 years ago

+1 to all of this.

Keep in mind that organizations will virtually always want to promote from within. The easiest way to show that you're capable of moving from Senior Eng to Staff Eng, or Senior Eng to Management is by meaningfully showing that you both understand what is expected in those roles, and that you're actively trying to incorporate those expectations into your every day work.

You should discuss the various roles / directions available to you with your manager, learn the expectations involved in those roles and work together to find opportunities that will help you move into those roles.

One thing, regardless of the direction you go in, that you can start working on right away is communication skills.

alexandercrohde• 7 years ago

1. Most people who want to manage won't, period. That's just the math, ICs outnumber managers severalfold.

2. Many people will never become managers because they don't seem "managery." They don't dress right, they don't use the right buzzwords, they have a speech impediment, they speak too truthfully. There are all sorts of cultural factors too that people don't admit. For example, no manager would ever say this point 2 to you, because it's too honest and potentially upsetting.

3. A lot of people will only promote you to manager if they think you'll be able to make them look good, and that's the end of it.

meristem• 7 years ago

+1 on point 2, no matter how terrible this sounds. Unfortunately this means decoding what your manager, and your organization, understand a manager to look like/talk like/act like.

pm906• 7 years ago

The reason for 2. is mostly a fear that such a person might not be very effective at communicating, convincing and listening to others. There is certainly also an element of social charisma to it. I don’t think it is something that can’t be learned though; in fact I imagine most people that become managers perhaps take the time to do just that.... almost like a self fulfilling prophecy.

Nobody is born a manager.

JMTQp8lwXL• 7 years ago

I'd imagine a team lead engineering role would be the transition between individual contributor and management roles.

zug_zug• 7 years ago

I don't believe a word of this. It's the usual buzzword-soup that's self-contradictory with even the simplest glance (e.g. claiming a manager's value is both unmeasurable but also the key to promotion? If it's unmeasurable, you're probably getting promoted for something else, like company growth, being well-liked, looking the part)

It reeks of the self-importance of a director who reassures himself, "Well I got this far, so I must be doing things right." Is this author the kind of person who'd fail to buy google for 1bn, while "ensuring alignmnet with managers" and other PHB concerns? We'll never know.

But what we do know is that less that 5% of this article is actually about making the right decisions happen. That to me is a red flag.

thendrill• 7 years ago

Whoever wrote the article were on a heavy dose of corporate cool aid sprinkled with some denial of the "Peter principal"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

Ragnarork• 7 years ago

You have to shift your mindset, and focus on building new skills that are often very different from the skills that made you successful in your previous role.

How is that "denial of the Peter Principle"?

Not even mentioning that the Peter Principle can be criticized in itself, as it's based on suppositions that are dubious and do not necessarily hold. For example the fact that you might not end up actually keeping the position at which you become "incompetent".

naringas• 7 years ago

to use the language of this [1]; I agree, I get a strong sense of "posturetalk"

[1] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

The Evolution of Management: Transitioning Up the Ladder

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