[cgopalan]

Mitchell is the only person I can think of who went through the cycle of tinkerer/IC -> founder -> CXO and then back to IC in his own company. Also, his writings on Zig has been tremendously helpful for someone like me who is curious about it. Huge respect from a fellow IC!

[kfrane]

The only other person I remember doing that is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Walker_(programmer)

Btw. he published a great read on how they started Autodesk https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/e5/

[jacquesm]

John Walker is also very impressive, definitely rates a mention. And I'll forever owe him because of Speak Freely.

[cgopalan]

That's great to know. Thanks!

[HatchedLake721]

IC?

[hazzamanic]

Individual contributor

[cgopalan]

Sorry, thought it was a fairly familiar acronym. IC = individual contributor.

[hadlock]

It's extremely familiar. No need to apologize.

[andrelaszlo]

Integrated Circuit. Insatiable Craving. Irrevocable Crust. Indifferent Creator. Ignatios of Constantinople. Instigating Crime. Irritating C**. Individual Contributor. Your guess is as good as mine!

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

It’s standard big corp parlance for a role that has no direct reports. Obvious terminology for anyone who has worked in an org with a moderate size HR or higher, but anyone else has probably never heard of it. I knew immediately that it meant Individual Contributor but I can easily see someone not knowing it if have never worked in BigCorp

[earthling8118]

Having worked in a few extremely large organizations myself, I've never had this term used. Only on this site.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Go on Blind and you'll see it used all the time, along with a flurry of other incomprehensible acronyms that make Silicon Valley the TV show seem more real than ever. Blind is probably the strongest representation of BigCo population on the internet in terms of percentage of users.

You'll see it in plenty of Reddit discussions as well. It just so happens that a good hunk of this site happen to work in the kind of environment that the acronym is used frequently so perhaps it's not entirely unreasonable to expect it to be well known.

I swear though, if you haven't been on Blind and you just visit it's like decoding another language with all the acronyms.

[bitwrangler]

Independent Consultant (my guess)

[madarcho]

At Unity, Joachim Ante always stayed very close to the underlying engine and its tech, rather than the broader market strategies and moves. Of course, every situation is unique and difficult to compare 1:1.

[epolanski]

Where can I find these writings?

[cgopalan]

On his website: https://mitchellh.com/zig