[tgma]

Counter opinion: if you want to advance in your career, always opt for management roles when given an option, even if you feel you don't love the shitwork that comes with it. Management is more versatile, more leveraged, and always has a seat at the table, whereas senior IC's power is serving at the peril of some manager. I would argue the most senior ICs that actually are successful are also managers who are afforded the luxury of not writing reviews and crappy paperwork pieces of the management, and thus are told they are ICs.

Another aspect of this is only a few companies really afford to have serious IC tracks beyond a certain point (basically FB and Google). Many more companies would be looking for senior management roles than senior IC roles, even if the absolute number of positions is lower; plus senior ICs are usually hired in their core specialization (e.g. networking expert is not automatically hired for ML in the same level,) whereas managers are seen as useful in different domains, giving them practical mobility.

[prerok]

Counter: I was once promoted to a management role and I hated it. I kept it up for a year and then went back to dev in another company.

Not all people want to be in meaningless meetings, shuffling people around and dealing with their personal/career growth, dealing with project plannings and Gantt charts, preparing presentations for upper management, etc.

/rant :)

[tgma]

Sure, I totally get that someone may hate it and on balance decides it is not worth it for them, and still recognize it is generally a career promotion. I am simply asserting it is objectively a promotion even though there's propaganda at FAANG explicitly suggesting otherwise.

[prerok]

It is a promotion, I agree, at least at most companies. They usually have a single ladder and many times from senior engineer there is nowhere to go except management.

Some companies, however, do recognize the need for multiple ladders, so you can also be promoted within engineering, with a salary that is higher than middle management.

It is a problem, if you switch then to a company that does not have multiple ladders, though.

[francisofascii]

I think this is the right approach. Give management an honest try, but if your life is miserable or not enjoyable, become a dev again.

[dusanh]

> whereas managers are seen as useful in different domains, giving them practical mobility

And this is exactly my problem with becoming a manager. You become fungible, easily replaceable, movable and fire-able.

[tgma]

And they are the people who decide whom to fire.

[timr]

It's a completely different world, and some people aren't made for it. Among other things, the politics of management positions is often pretty intense, and not something that engineering-oriented people find fulfilling.

[tgma]

ICs like to think they don't have to deal with politics. It is only an illusion that sometimes is true because their manager happen to protect them from those (double-edged sword: hurts visibility) and if they are lucky their interests are aligned with the boss. ICs often have a worse hand in politics because they have to fly blind in the politics world and operate with less information and visibility.

[timr]

I agree, but being aware of politics is entirely different than jumping into the deep end of the pool.

[scarface_74]

A low level manager really doesn’t have any more influence than a staff architect and often less. In the role I rejected that I spoke about in another reply and the role I accepted, the staff level IC is at the same level in the org as the engineering manager and we both report to a director.

In my current niche - cloud consulting - I can be over a project dealing with software development, cloud architecture, data analytics, migrations, cloud hosted call centers, etc.

Just like an engineering manager, I don’t have to be the best at each role. I just need to be comfortable working at that level of “scope”, “impact” and “ambiguity”.

[Ancalagon]

counter counter point: Meta, Amazon, and other tech co's have considerably flattened their orgs in recent years

[tgma]

Well, no one bats an eye if a manager chooses to become an IC (of course they have to know their shit, many of whom don't, and always bluff "I wish I was an IC"), but from IC to manager is not an automatic option.

Being a manager is "not a promotion" promotion.

[betaby]

Those are clearly the exceptions.