Career advice - Have to change jobs ASAP - without proper time for LC - Engineering Manager path?
Hi all,
I worked at Cisco for 5 years (Closer to a SRE than SWE - was in Internal Tooling), then went to IBM (and another company we were divested to) for 7 years (2 years SWE, 3 years Services SWE). Most recently, I've created a product from scratch using Spring/React. I've sold it to customers, developed 65% of it myself, and Led/managed a team of 10 engineers this past year to take it from the Alpha State I created it to a 1.0 product.
That being said, there is a toxic situation at work with a 2nd line manager who is trying to cover for her/her PMs mistakes and wants me out. My manager, team, distinguished engineer are all backing me. I'm probably safe for another 2 to 3 months, but I'm not for sure, and need to change positions asap just to be safe.
I'm being interviewed for Principal/Tech Lead positions. That being said, I'm starting a job search with 0 prep time, so while I'm reviewing DS, algorithms, Systems Design, I don't have the time to prep for real.
I originally was planning to prep for 3 months, then apply to various FAANG companies. Now, I just need to move companies, then maybe prep/apply. I've passed several coding interviews, but worried about all the Leetcode related interviews or heavy SD that I don't have the time to prep for.
My main questions are, as I need to secure a decent job quickly:
1. Should I target Senior roles instead of Staff/Principal since my total active dev time is lower? (<5 years since I was in tooling/SWE adjacent roles for several years)
2. A company (good company, not my end destination though) really likes my profile and is offering me the opportunity to interview as Engineering Manager or Tech Lead. I'm more confident I can get the EM position since the LC/SD prep won't be needed. While I'm interview for SWE at all other positions, should I go with Engineering Manager at this company just to hedge my bets? Then over the next year I can job search prep and switch back to the technical path (ideally apply to FAANG if this EM switch wouldn't look too bad to them)?
Thanks for any help you can provide, #engineering #swe #career
TC: LCOL, but way too low: 115
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