Re:On Being a Principal Engineer
by john_moscow on Sunday February 10, 2019 @08:17PM
(#19131364)
>I was told "your technical skills are senior level" "but you are too emotional" to promote.
Funny. I got a direct opposite experience. Being told that I got technical skills, but I focus too much on the technical side and don't consider other engineers' emotions. The team was pretty toxic though and I'm happy I left as soon as my lock-in expired.
> "but you are too emotional" to promote.
Jesus fucking Christ how is that even remotely acceptable as management feedback?
That seems like fine feedback as long as it was coupled with further specific and actionable feedback. e.g, "You yelled at Alice and Bob in the discussion about project X, rather than helping build a consensus about the right solution." Senior engineers should be solving problems in the org, not causing them.
One of the biggest things I took issue with was that you had to have some sort of "community involvement" but management had to approve your speaking engagements to some degree (be it time off, messaging approval, etc) so it was quite easy to put up a lot of blockers to achieving that. Who knows- they may have dropped that part.
The most striking thing to me, between this article and what happened in my personal experience, is that I was told "your technical skills are senior level" "but you are too emotional" to promote. I don't deny being emotional but as a reason to deny promotion on a tech track? Would they have said that to a woman or is OK since I'm a man it's not an inappropriate comment?