> he's been able to climb up to a engineering manager in a shorter amount of time than I've been working as a SWE

If you want to be an IC, don't short change your accomplishments. Eng Mgr is not a promotion from IC, it's a career change.

The SWE career progression is much more established, and is often much more formal and understood than an Eng Mgmt track.

Your younger manager has recently gone through a significant career change that requires a significant amount of self-education to advance further. It's possible he'll advance opportunistically (if there's a vacancy) or by being clever or political, but his competency will not necessarily advance with him without him putting a significant amount of effort into learning this new career.

It's not uncommon for established SWEs to make more than engineering managers until the engineering manager has progressed to a level where they are dealing with levels of stress (business & social) that would make most people's hair fall out.

Even then many companies have career tracks that pay as well in the upper echelons for individual technical contributors as for high level eng mgrs. The one thing they have in common is that there are very few positions at the top of any career ladder. It gets competitive. Hopefully your aspirations match your talents so that you can compete for those fewer positions.

Thank you for the perspective, that's very helpful.

Don't compare yourself to others. Life is half chance. Find a good paying job and a good life.

There is nothing special at the top of the ladder, just more money sometimes. Money isn't the only way to build a good life, and that's all money is good for.

Right. There’s always a bigger fish, so if you have imposter syndrome you’ll never be satisfied. Best to ignore those ideas.

I've kinda had the opposite experience. I started my SWE career in my early 30's. I feel like I've been treated as if I have more experience because of my age. And to some extent, rightly so. We have substantial work experience compared to a 21 year old. I did not start in a junior role.

Point being, don't blame your age. And don't underestimate yourself. And definitely don't compare yourself to others. If you are growing, then good fucking job. Keep doing that and maybe switch positions to somewhere more conducive to your growth if you feel like that's necessary.

Don't think like that. It might not have happened yet, but I'm sure in the future you'll be glad you can apply knowledge from agriculture and construction into your SWE role. And maybe not in your SWE role, but at least somewhere in your life.

triyambakam needs to take this advice to heart. Software engineering shares many troubleshooting patterns with agriculture and construction. While the cross-fertilization isn't 100% efficient, it doesn't need to be to be effective because the bar fortunately doesn't demand a global maxima only a local one: fix the current problem in a business-acceptable timeframe and cost, and you're adding value. Onto the next problem.

Management is a different job.

I’ve been an engineering manager for over three years; and the skillset is completely different. So much so that I recently flubbed some easy LC questions.

Businesses may treat it as a promotion, but don’t make the mistake of thinking it really is one.

I feel you on that, but in these moments I remember a quote from Steve Jobs: "You can't connect the points forward, you can only connect them backwards".

Which for me means that you don't yet know what advantage these 'wasted' years could give you in the future. Just trust yourself to make the best decisions you can given the circumstances and you'll get to where you want in as little time as you can.

Do you want to be a manager? SWE -> engineering manager is not a natural and guaranteed progression. It is a shift from individual contributor path to a management path. A good company will allow you to become a more and more senior IC (senior -> staff -> principal -> distinguished) without a requirement to become a manager to increase your pay.

Hey, I'm right there with you. I think this industry is skewed young, but not as much as we might think. For me, the redeeming quality of my early 20's is that I matured dramatically. I'd encourage you to take a good, long (I mean months long) look at your motivations over the last decade and find a way to honor the part of you that was curious about agriculture & construction, and find a way to bring that part of you to life in the here and now. The word for releasing the tension between being and doing is "play".

At one point I had a director of engineering who had something like 6 months of engineering experience; predictably … they weren't great at the engineering. I wouldn't put too much stock in it just because your manager is younger than you. Now, if they're climbing the ladder because they're actually amazing, by all means, try to learn from it, but I've seen people on runs of the ladder just inexplicably.

Engineering managers aren't necessarily better than you. It's not necessarily the next step up. I personally prefer to stay closer to code.

"The goal is not to be better than someone else; the goal is to be better than you were yesterday." (to paraphrase the Dalai Lama)

Best time was 10 years ago, second best is now :)

The reason the author says it so many times is because it is so hard to do in practice :)

You have an opportunity to distinguish yourself. You already stand out and break the mold as someone with a nonstandard background, and it will get noticed—and treated differently—if you excel.

In your next 1:1, ask him how he did it.

Ugh, one off data points are just as often wrong as they are right. What adage they give of their success could have just as aptly worked in reverse for you. Luck/timing (aka no strong correlation to actions) is a real thing, and are all too often ignored by the winners who always reward their achievements by "hard work" (clearly working hard is often needed as well to succeed).

If someone asked me "You seem pretty successful. How did you manage your career?" my story would be (other than some generalities) perhaps interesting but utterly unactionable for anyone else. And that's probably not unusual for anyone who hasn't followed a pretty conventional path.

Winners do this thing where they show the slightest interest in winning and a willingness to learn from more experienced people