<story><title>Growing from engineer to manager</title><url>https://newsletter.eng-leadership.com/p/growing-from-engineer-to-manager</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mindvirus</author><text>Even in FAANG it&amp;#x27;s a promotion. If not immediately, the cap for ICs is much lower.&lt;p&gt;Principal engineer at FAANG (L8): likely one of the best engineers in the world.&lt;p&gt;Engineering director at FAANG (L8): manager who&amp;#x27;s been there for a while and is good at acquiring more reports.&lt;p&gt;As a ratio, there are far more eng directors to managers than principal engineers to engineers.&lt;p&gt;All that said, know what you want in your career. If you love building, build. If you want money, do management.</text></item><item><author>usrnm</author><text>This trope of &amp;quot;growing&amp;quot; from an engineer to a manager needs to die. I grow as an engineer when I learn new stuff or become better at building things. Becoming a manager is changing jobs, not growth in any meaningful way. Not even in salary in many places</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jayroh</author><text>&amp;gt; If you want money, do management.&lt;p&gt;If you make it to my comment, please - do not go into management for the money. If you want to build, then remain an IC. If you want to grow other engineers, further THEIR career, make THEM better - go into management.&lt;p&gt;The friends of mine who ended up in management for the money and complain about their reports make me so angry.</text></comment>
<story><title>Growing from engineer to manager</title><url>https://newsletter.eng-leadership.com/p/growing-from-engineer-to-manager</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mindvirus</author><text>Even in FAANG it&amp;#x27;s a promotion. If not immediately, the cap for ICs is much lower.&lt;p&gt;Principal engineer at FAANG (L8): likely one of the best engineers in the world.&lt;p&gt;Engineering director at FAANG (L8): manager who&amp;#x27;s been there for a while and is good at acquiring more reports.&lt;p&gt;As a ratio, there are far more eng directors to managers than principal engineers to engineers.&lt;p&gt;All that said, know what you want in your career. If you love building, build. If you want money, do management.</text></item><item><author>usrnm</author><text>This trope of &amp;quot;growing&amp;quot; from an engineer to a manager needs to die. I grow as an engineer when I learn new stuff or become better at building things. Becoming a manager is changing jobs, not growth in any meaningful way. Not even in salary in many places</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dasil003</author><text>Your point is that managers are more upwardly mobile, which is fair, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean when you make the switch it is a promotion.  G9 IC -&amp;gt; M0 will not increase your salary.  It does grant you more power, but that is not a promotion per se.&lt;p&gt;The other thing to watch out for is manager growth over the last 10-15 years was a result of the structural needs of an unprecedented tech bull run.  Now that the industry has moved into belt-tightening mode, the heaviest scrutiny is falling on managers.  The type of political games a typical 35 year-old EM (5 years coding, 10 years EM) may not be as effective as they were in the previous environment.  There are a LOT of EMs getting pipped or knocked back to IC these days, whereas ICs with a bit of product&amp;#x2F;UX sense, ability to think a bit beyond their silo, and willing to work on &amp;quot;boring&amp;quot; business applications will continue to be highly valued, especially given the amount of dead weight that has found its way in by grinding leetcode.</text></comment>