I actually think for most of us, after some point, switching to engineering manager track is often far easier to continue leveling up in. Most good companies have an equivalent tech track, but unless the stars are aligned and you're blessed with a supportive manager AND the right project that align with your talents, its going to take a much longer time progressing.
Of course in both tracks, it's no longer only about your own contributions and impact to the team, but that your contributions and impact now translate to everyone else you work with so that they're able to improve their own contributions and impact. Or in another way, is what you're doing helping everyone else do better?! So even though that sounds straight forward, showing that at performance review time can actually be really challenging if you're in a tech role vs. a people management role.
I've heard the complaint that some of us shouldn't be EMs, but I'm a firm believer that if it's something you enjoy, you can absolutely learn how to be a great EM. I would only consider sticking with the tech track if you enjoy the tech work more.
"I actually think for most of us, after some point, switching to engineering manager track is often far easier to continue leveling up in. Most good companies have an equivalent tech track, but unless the stars are aligned and you're blessed with a supportive manager AND the right project that align with your talents, its going to take a much longer time progressing.
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That's a really important point. In theory my company has a technical track but it's freakishly difficult to move up on it. On the other hand I see a lot of mediocre managers moving up higher on the pay scale all the time.
My company has a tech track but NO developers are on it. It’s basically designed so that nobody can ever qualify for it. As far as I can see it’s purely there to entice developers and then push the blame back on them when they inevitably have to turn into managers - “look, you COULD have been on the tech track if you tried harder, you made the choice to progress on the management track.”
I think one thing is that in a lot of companies there still is the belief that your pay is determined by the number of people you have under you and that a manager always has to make more than than the people they manage.
Surely it’s insane economics for the company though. My management skills must be almost useless (and I’m considered an ok manager) compared to my dev skills. I can’t understand what’s in it for the company to make EVERYONE into crap managers AND pay them more AND make them unhappy AND ensure that only inexperienced juniors have time to actually do work. Just don’t get it. But every company wants to do it.
The trick in my observation seems to be that, on the manager track, it's possible to get move up by being on a successful project and simply not getting in the way, which plausibly may be what was needed ("the team had gelled and was cranking away and I felt the best way to support them was to free them to do what they needed to do"). This can be repeated pretty far up. As an aside, I'd estimate that the less a manager ends up needing to do, the more likely success ends up being on a project.
Meanwhile, hanging back, chilling, reacting, and taking credit for the work of others tends to not get it done on the technical track and even doing great work doesn't mean much without you or someone else doing a bunch of selling for it.
There is a lot of generally invisible work of leaders. That can be hard to distinguish from "not doing anything at all" in the moment, but across a year or more, the leaders who carefully build teams, work with the engineering leads to set appropriate goals and scope for projects, make sure that critical roadblocks are removed, ensure that engineers feel engaged with the work and company goals will succeed beyond that of those are literally doing nothing. To the junior engineers in the org, it may not appear any different and one leader just seems to keep getting lucky (appearing to just be dealt a series of good teams, good projects, consistently getting good outcomes, etc).
"I've heard the complaint that some of us shouldn't be EMs, but I'm a firm believer that if it's something you enjoy, you can absolutely learn how to be a great EM."
The worst manager I've had probably thought they were a great manager - but that was someone who shouldn't be one.
How such do s such tech track is defined. I was researching such role path for our company but did not find a description e.g. what are preconditions, role name and stages, responsibilities...
Really looking for help here how to implement such path.
Of course in both tracks, it's no longer only about your own contributions and impact to the team, but that your contributions and impact now translate to everyone else you work with so that they're able to improve their own contributions and impact. Or in another way, is what you're doing helping everyone else do better?! So even though that sounds straight forward, showing that at performance review time can actually be really challenging if you're in a tech role vs. a people management role.
I've heard the complaint that some of us shouldn't be EMs, but I'm a firm believer that if it's something you enjoy, you can absolutely learn how to be a great EM. I would only consider sticking with the tech track if you enjoy the tech work more.