I was an individual contributor, working and promoted through the software engineer levels. I worked on front end, backend and cloud technologies through the past 15 years. I am 39 years old today. I loved coding and enjoyed hands on work, solving tough problems. Then in 2020, I got promoted and now I am in a role which is a mix of team lead and architect in my team. I have a team of engineers in my team and I am not hands on anymore in this role. My manager discussed my career goals in a recent 1:1 and I mentioned to him that I was not interested in people management, and would like to continue in the technical line. I told him that because that's what I genuinely feel, but after that call I got this unsettling confused feeling that I don't know what roles I need to aspire for in my career ahead. I don't even know what roles I should search for and apply in companies. People senior to me and/or over this career hump, please guide me on this. TC: 270k
Given that you can write so much and say so little, you may have a calling in people management
😊 😅 sarcasm aside, you are actually confirming my gut feel that I'd make a shitty people manager. I want to stay technical, and trying to look for opportunities to do that. My current title is software architect, but I'm not sure what this role progresses to
Go to people management.
Being hands off the first time will have its emotions /un-settling feeling .. but please try this for more than a year. You might continue to enjoy it . You can always go back to being hands on. But management opportunities don’t come too often ..
Go for Senior TPM. That is the best option.
Thanks. Good suggestion 👍
Keep in mind that TPM roles involve a LOT of endless meetings, documentation, project forecasting, office politics, and pressure.
I was a manager for 6 years then went back to IC. It's not for everyone. But let's be honest, it will limit your growth/TC. I'm 50% accepting of it. I look at it as I'm paying the company for someone else to babysit its children.
Oh, look for principal/architect/technologist and eventually fellow. That's the technical track
Yea I'm trying that line, but it would need me to move into a different group and there is heavy competition for PE promotions within Cisco. Once I was surprisingly told that I don't have enough experience (I read it as I'm young) for a PE or DE lateral move.
I can understand and relate that with my own experience… I always miss my developer and hands on days… but I realized that as a senior professional, you are expected to drive the project at a larger scale with design, architecture and delivery responsibilities. Won’t you agree that at a certain experience and growing age, people expect and respect you overall architecture and leadership role more over your code development? I personally feel a great respect for people having good development experience who matured into management and tech leadership roles. Lot of examples where people struggle in tech mgmt and leadership because they didn’t had much hands on development experience. Reading your experience, I would say time to get into tech leadership if you need long term growth… maybe a slow transition but eventually that may be the right path…
But people suck and they don't listen
Now reading this means you need to work a little more on people mgmt and leadership then… 😊 take your time and experiment then…
TC? When it's high enough, it wouldn't matter, would it? OP, if you doubled your TC tomorrow, I'm sure this post wouldn't exist.
Updated TC. Well no, I'm not a TC chaser. I want to look for quality work which aligns to my strengths
Not chasing, but if you had an offer of 500K tomorrow, wouldn't you just shut up and drive? Don't get me wrong, OP, I'm with you, but I make sure to carve out enough hours for my life so that IDGAF about such a dilemma. If I happen to enjoy my daily job on top, great. Otherwise it's purely a maximum leverage for time and experience expressed in dead presidents. This also helps with the false sense of company "loyalty", in both directions.
Team Lead, Staff, Principal...all tech & IC
You don’t need to become a people leader. Go with the technical track and move up as IC - perfectly fine. Life is short, do what you enjoy. The cool thing about engineering is that you can earn great TC being an IC
I was in the same boat and decided to go people management.
I'm very strong technically, my mind is sharp and strong in that area. I dislike management and esp people management ...I feel I'm not cut out for it. Techie at heart.
Don’t go to people mgt. It is shitty and will screw your career