Re:A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers
by jacalata on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @09:52AM
(#10003366)
How many VPs are there, and how many engineers at his pay grade? As in, if a junior engineer at your company is looking at their future, are there five times as many chances to become a VP as to become a highly paid tech superstar?
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Re:A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers
by anotherdatem on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @09:01PM
(#10007465)
Advancing as an engineer is probably easier for the ambitious because there's not a fixed number of senior technical staff. If a technical contributor levels up their game, they can nearly immediately level up their pay.
The management track doesn't work that way; we need to level up our games, and then wait for an opportunity to arise due to corporate growth or turnover. For example, I'm getting coached to take over the CTO slot, but there's no reason to believe that I'll ever get the opportunity, because there's no reason to believe the existing CTO will ever give up their job.