I’ve been at my current company (small, ~300ish headcount company in the Energy sector, mainly a Ruby/Rails stack) going on 10+ years. Since joining, I originally started as a SWE, promoted to Senior 1.5 years later, then eventually team lead. In 2019, I was asked to take on the Director of Engineering role several months after we were acquired by a PE firm and the previous VPE left and a new CTO came onboard. I was initially very unsure of the switch as I absolutely loved being an IC. However, given my unique role in our ED (depth of knowledge, strong relationships across the org, worked closely with execs, joined the company as employee #13), I decided to take it for a number of reasons: * It would help mitigate disruption compared to another outside EM coming in * I had the trust and respect of the other engineers, as well as stakeholders and execs * I saw it as a great growth and learning opportunity * Significant—at the time—TC jump (~30% cash + equity) I told myself I’d give it at least 2-3 years before deciding to try and transition back if I didn’t love it. It’s been a good run, I’ve grown a ton, and have had some big accomplishments. Due to some org changes over the past year or so, I’ve come to *really* not like it and want to switch back to an IC role. I never stopped scratching the itch of coding and growing as an engineer (I was pivotal in the design and development of a few large, complex solutions even while DOE), have a strong understanding of data structures and algorithms, and love to learn. Additionally, I want to try and break into a FAANG or otherwise large company (Shopify, Block, Stripe, Disney, etc). Despite the nagging imposter syndrome being at a smaller company most of my career, I’m confident I have the ability to make it at that level. Given my experience of both rising in the ranks as an IC and doing well as an EM, I feel like I’d do well as a Senior Staff or Principal Engineer. However, I understand the challenge of breaking into these types of companies at that level without “Big Tech” experience. How practical is it to aim for something like an L7/67ish position? Is that a possibility with my type of experience or should I be thinking more like L5/6 to break in? Regardless, I’m in full prep mode, revamping my resume and LinkedIn, working on tech interview questions, etc. I have the goal to start applying in the next 3-4 weeks. Thoughts? TC 200k + 20bps (~$300-600k 2-3yr potential based on current EBITDA, growth and sale projections)
I’ve found there’s few engineers who do like it. My two previous bosses both switched back to becoming programmers. And I’m making the same move myself. For people like me who loved programming since I was a kid and didn’t go into it for the money, why would I give that up to do boring business stuff.