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A comment on What it was like working for Gitlab. Parent comment

Re:What it was like working for Gitlab by throwboatyface on Tuesday February 13, 2024 @11:01PM (#39366306)
In every startup I've been in, there was undue deference to long-time ICs. They didn't normally stir up public fights with execs but they would openly undercut line managers and then move around in the org as people tried to stop being responsible for them.

It's not really clear what you do with a staff+ long-term IC. A lot of them don't want to manage or be involved in leadership, but they want to pull down a huge salary and just do work that is frankly replaceable by a senior eng.

To be clear I do believe there are levels of IC experience above staff, but being 21 and joining a startup doesn't make you a Principal Engineer just because you hung around until you're 30. Especially if you've only worked at that one startup.

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Re:What it was like working for Gitlab by julik on Thursday February 22, 2024 @04:35PM (#39473597)
> It's not really clear what you do with a staff+ long-term IC

Set clear expectations in the first place. "I want to run things my way here, I'm the new management and I don't like you" is not an expectation - and that's what I have observed happen all too often.

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