Individual Contributor.

Means that you're only writing code, not managing people at all. It's the opposite of a (pure) Engineering Manager, who only manages and writes no code / produces no design.

Most mid level people (for example L6-L7 at Google/Facebook) are simultaneously managers and engineers, thus somewhere between IC and EM.

Almost all low level people (L3-L5) are ICs, almost all high level people (L8+) are managers/directors/executives that produce no technical solutions themselves.

I was working at a fairly enlightened (said all the right things) corporation that had a principle engineer track--or whatever it was called--that fooled engineers into thinking they could be a bad ass developer/mentor/architect without being responsible for managing staff. When I left the managers were using these guys to drive (as in micromanage the fuck out of them) the troops. All they were doing was staring at vulnerability reports that would make your eyes bleed and nagging people in slack for one of their five daily 1-on-1 updates. Everyone they were doing this to were top grade devs--a few left for Google and AWS.

Thank you for the answer! Much obliged.

Adding “tech” or “tech meaning” to the end of an unfamiliar abbreviation can help refine the searches. In my case “tech meaning” brings up a Quora question that answers this.

Alternatively, you can Google “what is an IC hacker news” and you can find previous threads where this was asked and defined.

If you have a question about an abbreviation being used in HN (Hacker News), it’s probably something others have asked about before.

Individual Contributor - Someone who isn't managing others.