Which pays more or is a better career move in the long run? I'm technical, but my startup experience has pointed me towards product management and lead me to an almost equal amount of demonstrable experience on either side. Unsure which one I should pursue from here on out, nor exactly sure which companies would have the best growth for either career path.
The average Microsoft engineer has been there for 15 years.
Fake news.
Build your technical career until you outgrow it. Then switch to a career where you amplify your impact / contribution through others. Leadership skills are more rare and more valuable overall.
Always SDE. Against any other software discipline.
It depends on what growth you want and what you enjoy. Ultimately you'll be more successful in the area that you enjoy/are good at. If you enjoy both equally I would focus on the software engineer path first. It's easier to make a lateral/upward move from Dev->TPM than the other way around. If you go down the TPM path and change your mind you'll have a bigger gap in core skills and be rusty.
Thanks, this makes tremendous sense. Probably going to take this route and maybe switch later on.
Glad it was helpful. Good luck.
Cout<< I'm assuming you are an engineer now ?
@cout<< I bounced back and forth and can tell you from my own experience that what seems true to you now was in fact true for me. I don't expect to go back to engineering at this point. Ever. Stay there as long as you enjoy it, as long as you advance.
I hear the PM role at Microsoft is pretty different from other companies. Getting back to dev is easy if you stay up-to-date. I've seen teams where a lot of PMs hce switched to dev because the PMs are inherently more technical and a lot of them check in code.
At Uber, I would say, hands down SWE has a monumentally better outlook. Your path goes all the way up to CTO or Principal. Plenty of growth and interesting problems. You can even do some casual TPM'ing if you want. TPM on the other hand may ascend a few levels and then stop. Not to mention there are by definition less opportunities for TPM i.e. TPM:eng is like 1:10. And your work is basically herding cats. It looks frustrating. Since you're not really technical and not really a PM, you don't get much respect by either function. Definitely go deep on SWE.
When you say TPM do you mean Technical Program Manager ?
Growth and demand for software engineers is higher. Stay a software engineer until you get too old or burn out then switch
Any companies you have in mind that's a good place to grow as an engineer?
Any of the top ones that people talk about - G, FB, Amazon, Uber