After several years at MS I’ve seen time and time again people with no experience, no design excellence/quality bar getting promoted to Principal only because they are in a manager role, and riding on the success of a hard working team. A lot of IC get overlooked simply because they don’t get the sr. lead visibility or that impact is measured on revenue/MAU (monthly active users) which become a coin toss since some features will have big impact on driving MAU (like integration) where some driving quality will not. Is this how other tech company measure design impact?! As a quality driven(read perfectionist) designer I feel like this measurement is heavily skewed to promote managers rather than hard working IC designers. Considering leaving MS because of this. 11 YoE 220 TC 🤘
My post refers to that MS has a very skewed view on promotion between IC and managers. Lvl 63/64 ->65/66/67
in Cisco it’s Tech Lead > Sr Tech Lead > Principal (by committee approval only) Are you sure you have this right and the lead is a people leader (meaning not just a technical leader (IC)). Principal Engineer at Cisco is an IC role at same level as director.
What I meant was that it’s pretty hard for sr designers to get promoted vs. a manager at MS.
Design manager here. I think we do need more IC principles. It’s hard to get there, and it’s harder as an IC. For managers- it is easier- because ultimately you can have more impact because of your team. They can execute in the areas you point them in and therefore get more done. That said, a managers job is super hard and frustrating. Politics, people, politics, less hands on work… it’s kind of like all the bullshit and way less of the fun. I would also say if you’ve only been at MS for 3 years it is common it takes longer to get to principle. Are you showing up in meetings? Is your manager presenting ‘for’ you? Ask why if so, and ask for more opportunities to present your work in upwards meetings, but do understand sometimes that’s not possible. To get around this I’ve done videos and snuck my name or face in them. Also- you need the full LT sign-off on the promotion. You should be having high-level cross-discipline impact. It’s more then drawing pictures.
I hear you, and I am more interested in the conversation around what constitutes as impact within tech design. Impact=revenue/visibility/MAU? I think it ultimately creates a system skewed against IC design. I do appreciate the comment about what I should do/need to do however. I think this also shows up as subjective as it seems like all you need is a sponsor. Not saying being a Manager is easy. I’ve led teams and I’ve also been a manager at MS before. Politics is never fun and especially when half of your work is to convince other people of the true impact of design, and why design excellence is important. If I boil it down I see Principle design managers = Successful product (not reflective of your own work) Principle design IC = over deliver and play politics to get other people to understand and vouch for your worth, a long with “getting lucky” (or choose) to get put on features that have business impact.
India
7h
2223
Why is it so G*damn difficult to move money out of India
India
Yesterday
840
Any Indians Think Kashmir Should be Independent?
Cars
Yesterday
1456
Cyber truck killer: Chinese version of EV truck
Tech Industry
Yesterday
2805
I do tech screens at Google. AMA
AMA
Yesterday
2206
I have worked at TikTok US core tech for 3 years. AMA.
Vwyf
Sure that’s easy enough, what I like to understand is if this is common practice at tech companies who promote IC designers to principle?