Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path

Re:Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path by shantly on Monday October 28, 2019 @10:26AM (#21377287)

I'm trying but at 35 haven't formally held a title that meant I was leading others. Every posting even for a team lead wants 3 years or 5 years or whatever of leadership already, and that's not even really a management position most places. An MBA and re-entering at the bottom would be very expensive, in direct costs and lost wages.

What's the way in? Hope you find yourself in a job where there are leadership positions open and the stars align and you're promoted into one?

And you're dead right, not every place is Google or whatever. Hell I don't think Google's Google, mostly, in terms of what they actually do, but they do pay developers very well regardless, so there's that. But outside a handful of huge pure-tech companies and Wall Street, you better be moving out of development by 40 or so (earlier if you can swing it, really—god I wish I'd started making moves this way years ago), or your career's (pay's) in for a brief flat trajectory followed by a sharp drop way before you'd have liked.

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Re:Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path by tytso on Monday October 28, 2019 @12:40PM (#21378568)

You can find ways of being a technical leader without having a formal role. You can mentor more junior engineers; you can try to establish better coding and test/QA standards at your company. You can find some open source project that you're passionate about, and take on leadership roles there. Maybe you can find a way to contribute in standards organization.

If I'm interviewing you for a job at $COMPANY, I'm going to be looking for signs that you can exhibit leadership, and that's going to be way more important than whatever title that you might have. If you have the title, but you can't demonstrate ways in which you were able to demonstrate technical leadership, the title isn't going to mean much.

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Re:Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path by dfxm12 on Monday October 28, 2019 @10:47AM (#21377461)

What's the way in? Hope you find yourself in a job where there are leadership positions open and the stars align and you're promoted into one?

In corporate jobs, this is rarely the way in. Most likely, you'll have to convince your current manager (and maybe theirs) that you're ready to be a manager and look for a manager opening elsewhere in the company. If you think you're ready and your current employer does not, you'll have to look outside.

Years of leadership seems like a purposefully vague credential. It's not about a title; if you don't think you've been a leader at work, you probably weren't (or maybe you were and your talent just wasn't managed properly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

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Re:Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path by ryandrake on Monday October 28, 2019 @11:41AM (#21377930)

> In corporate jobs, this is rarely the way in. Most likely, you'll have to convince your current manager (and maybe theirs) that you're ready to be a manager and look for a manager opening elsewhere in the company.

Also, get ready for a lot of gatekeeping. “Oh, you don’t really want to be a manager! It’s so much more responsibility and work. You should be happy to be a foot soldier for the rest of your career! Management is not all it’s cracked up to be. As you can see I’m stressed all the time! Now excuse me, I have to go close on my second vacation home in Hawaii.”

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Re:Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path by shantly on Monday October 28, 2019 @10:53AM (#21377508)

The requirement's usually tied to holding the title, like they want that to have been your full-time thing. It's been my experience that people see what you're doing in a very different light depending on your title (one title, one company one day, everyone second-guesses or ignores everything you say; different title, different company, a few days later, suddenly everyone's deferring to you in meetings and sincerely asking your opinion about everything to such a degree that it's unnerving) including in hindsight—if your title was "lead" you don't have to spend a ton of time explaining exactly how, as a non-"lead", you were leading to convince people you were, and you don't have to avoid giving the impression you were being "bossy" or overstepping by doing it.

[EDIT] my suspicion here is that yeah, it's basically "luck into it". I mean that's how everything else I've done career- and pay-progression-wise has worked (luck into someone tasking me with something they definitely wouldn't hire me to do, but after I've done it for a few months someone else would) so maybe this'll work out the same way.

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Re:Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path by dominotw on Monday October 28, 2019 @10:52AM (#21377502)

> If you think you're ready and your current employer does not, you'll have to look outside.

Is it even possible to find a management position outside without management experience?

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Re:Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path by ryandrake on Monday October 28, 2019 @11:44AM (#21377955)

I’ve faced the typical deadlock that first time job seekers encounter: you need management experience to get hired as a manager, but nobody will give you a chance to get management experience because you’ve never managed before.

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Re:Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path by hadsed on Monday October 28, 2019 @11:18AM (#21377728)

You should take a look at startups, especially keep your eyes peeled for the growing ones. You’ll have to read the culture to see how they choose managers (promote from within or hire from outside) but opportunities are usually abound and companies just need to get things done. Try to hold out for people above you that you really like and are good, kind folks that want to see you grow. That’s also typically a good approximation of company culture in general, in addition to a good litmus test of whether your bosses can help you in your career progression.

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