Currently an SDE at one of the public clouds with decent domain knowledge. I was wondering if it makes sense to transtion from SDE to some kind of Cloud Solutions Architect role. Thinking about this because I plan to settle down with family etc. and don't wanna leetcode all my life everytime I wanna switch for TC. With being an architect, I'll keep jumping from azure -> gcp -> aws. Rinse and repeat until tree fiddy. What's wrong with this idea?
Nope, Solutions Architect role TC caps out at about 60% of the typical SDE TC with same experience and at the same location.
Eh more like 75%-85% This has always been the case/history, SWE usually make more in total TC than other technical roles.
This is surprising. I always thought architect was the pinnacle of a SDE's career path.
I'd be surprised if you didn't need LC at all in a cloud solution architect interview round.
You dont. Very little coding involved as a SA. And coding is mostly for IaC and orchestration platforms
Interesting! Maybe that's a way to avoid the LC grind then...
I think the biggest difference is, that CSA usually is a pre-sales role
Wrong. It *can* be a part of the sale process or it can be internal architecture but CSA is not a sales role in and of itself.
Is TC really always worse than for SDE? How does it compare to sales engineer roles ?
Lower than SDE most of the time, but MUCH higher than SE. Its about 85% pay of same level SDE/SWE.
What is SE?
It really depends on what you like.. I've been SDE before, and now I'm a CSA and loving it! For example.. if you prefer coding, no travel, no customer interaction, and doesn't bother business side then SDE is the choice
Yep this. I've never been interested in coding, personally, but I love systems design and infra architecture so being a SA is perfect for me. Always been an infra guy from the start of my career.
How do see your career grow? I see a clear ladder in SDE: SDE2 -> Senior -> Principal ->... Or SDE2 -> Senior -> Manager -> Director... What's the typical growth of a CSA look like?
How does one get an SA role? Working with customers sounds like a lot of fun.
Depends on if you want to go infrastructure SA or application SA. Apps SA would be a good segway from SWE but focused on system design and fundamentals of infrastructure (servers, load balancers, dbs, application design etc) Infra SA you'll need fairly heavy experience in infrastructure via systems desgin (data center technologies, networking, server OS, virtualization/cloud platform, dbs, storage, applications, hardware, containerization, IaC, orchestration etc). Most people have some or all the background like sys admin/sys engineer, infra engineer, cloud engineer, etc
Solutions Architects tend to travel a lot. Having a hard time seeing how that's going to help you manage the transition to having kids, assuming you want to spend time with them.
SAs are one of the best role in any industry. Agreed SDEs usually earns more but not comparable with some of the senior SAs. It's interesting work than coding, everyday something new, solving customer problem, getting recognizing in higher-ups. If you are introvert,just care about doing your own things,no broader vision about organization/industry then SA role may not be good fit for a career. I found lot of visibility in oraganizations/ where it's going/ what industry needs in SA role than it was in coding.
I'm a textbook introvert and I've been successful in this role for years now.
Pseudo Extrovert :) same here. Been successful in a SA/SE role for years. However initial couple of years were hard cause it’s such a different mindset and the people/sales skills are so nuanced and subtle that takes time to get but once you get comfortable it’s an amazing role to be in.
You're forgetting all the business and people skills you need to be a c-level. What you listed would be probably maxed out at principal level, if that high. People and business skills are very necessary when you're both the technical and business advocate for the customer.
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You'd gain invaluable systems design experience. Even if you didnt like it and ended up back as SWE its great to experience the pure SD side and then you'd be "full stack"