You’re not alone in thinking this was advice for managers, many people have said this. But the word manager doesn’t appear in the piece a single time, and I think it’s great advice for individual contributors, so I hope no one editorializes the title this way!
It’s not like only managers can propose slight shifts (desired by the existing team, explicitly in this construction) in process. Unless you’ve got a real jerk of a manager or aren’t doing your base line job well yet, such suggestions, if broached carefully, ought to be welcome.
The world "leader" is used though. While there are certainly non-manager leaders, most members on any given team are not leaders.
"...the natural instinct to push for early impact leads many incoming leaders into challenging relationships..."
The higher up you get in engineering the IC/management distinctions normally start to blur. I think this is equally good advice for many senior engineers.
Re:A Career Cold Start Algorithm
by kewpiedoll99 on Friday March 16, 2018 @10:26AM
(#16600859)
I'm an IC and I read it as very relevant for ICs.
It’s somewhat applicable to individual contributors, but it’s intended more for managers, which I didn’t realize until halfway through it. Might just add some clarity for folks opening it up without any context.