<story><title>Senior engineers are living in the future</title><url>https://www.zerobanana.com/essays/living-in-the-future/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>triyambakam</author><text>Where I am often hung up in comparison is due to age. I dropped out of college and spent my early 20s learning agriculture and construction. Now I work in software engineering and my current manager is younger than me. Not only is he younger than me, but he&amp;#x27;s been able to climb up to an engineering manager in a shorter amount of time than I&amp;#x27;ve been working as a SWE. So I feel really lame - wasted so much time early in my life and still seem to be wasting time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Ironlikebike</author><text>&amp;gt; he&amp;#x27;s been able to climb up to a engineering manager in a shorter amount of time than I&amp;#x27;ve been working as a SWE&lt;p&gt;If you want to be an IC, don&amp;#x27;t short change your accomplishments. Eng Mgr is not a promotion from IC, it&amp;#x27;s a career change.&lt;p&gt;The SWE career progression is much more established, and is often much more formal and understood than an Eng Mgmt track.&lt;p&gt;Your younger manager has recently gone through a significant career change that requires a significant amount of self-education to advance further. It&amp;#x27;s possible he&amp;#x27;ll advance opportunistically (if there&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;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 &amp;amp; social) that would make most people&amp;#x27;s hair fall out.&lt;p&gt;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.</text></comment>
<story><title>Senior engineers are living in the future</title><url>https://www.zerobanana.com/essays/living-in-the-future/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>triyambakam</author><text>Where I am often hung up in comparison is due to age. I dropped out of college and spent my early 20s learning agriculture and construction. Now I work in software engineering and my current manager is younger than me. Not only is he younger than me, but he&amp;#x27;s been able to climb up to an engineering manager in a shorter amount of time than I&amp;#x27;ve been working as a SWE. So I feel really lame - wasted so much time early in my life and still seem to be wasting time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nonethewiser</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve kinda had the opposite experience. I started my SWE career in my early 30&amp;#x27;s. I feel like I&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;Point being, don&amp;#x27;t blame your age. And don&amp;#x27;t underestimate yourself. And definitely don&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;s necessary.</text></comment>