[gotaquestion]

It is impossible to remain an individual contributor at Intel. This will last about a year. There are simply too many employees to maintain a flat hierarchy. People dream of this, but in reality, if you're really that good, you will absolutely become a manager, there's just not enough hands on deck.

Plus there is also social pressure: while you're cavorting about as an individual contributor, many other peers will be crushed under management pressure, and will start to resent you, and demand to the VPs that you share the load.

That being said, Intel is really taking a hard turn back to engineering. I might even consider going back there, assuming Gelsinger doesn't go back to the old school ranking-and-ratings that forces you up or out, or the "you must give 120%" bullshit. Being forced to work in "dungeon mode" for months at a time is what drove me out. "Dungeon mode" is supposed to be a 1-2 week thing to fix a serious bug. (DM is spending 14 hours a day in a conference room 7 days a week.) YOu can only do that so many years in a row before saying enough. That's why Intel lost so many people to Apple a few years ago.

[summerlight]

> It is impossible to remain an individual contributor at Intel. This will last about a year. There are simply too many employees to maintain a flat hierarchy. People dream of this, but in reality, if you're really that good, you will absolutely become a manager, there's just not enough hands on deck.

This is right. In most big techs, even if you manage to "technically" remain as a individual contributor at a principal/distinguished level, but you're very likely going to lead/manage a bunch of technical projects which will effectively give you tens of informal reports. Even without external social pressures, I saw many people voluntarily choose to become a manager because it's nearly impossible to handle the workload.

[georgeburdell]

>(DM is spending 14 hours a day in a conference room 7 days a week.) YOu can only do that so many years in a row before saying enough. That's why Intel lost so many people to Apple a few years ago.

I refuse to believe that people went from Intel to Apple for quality of life improvements

[gotaquestion]

There are many sides to apple. The CPU architecture side is not the same as software, cloud, or products/apps, it is run very differently. It's almost a different company. The architects and designers I know left because they were tired of Intel forcing crazy product roadmap twists and turns, and demands on their time, seemingly going nowhere. Apple's Mx silicon has been a smashing success, quite a change from Intel's architectural constipation and chain-yanking of their engineers. Most employees at Intel are pigeonholed, and it is rare that an opportunity to break out without having to move cities occurs, and many took it.

[lallysingh]

Less abuse is still better than more abuse?

[pstuart]

Per the recent story about Jony Ive burning out at Apple I wonder how well Brendan will be protected from the miasma of managing a staff in a highly political environment.

I'd think a smart move would be to hire a personnel manager for him to deal with all administrivia and let him focus on leveraging his talents with other like minds.