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Comment by nunez | Hacker News Reader

This post resonated with me. I've realized that, more often than not, technical individual contributors have very very little influence over the general direction of a product, let alone a business, and have a very well-understood (and, in my opinion, low) salary cap. Job hopping helps with ensuring that your compensation doesn't stray too far off from market rate, but this only brings you closer to the proverbial glass ceiling. I've also worked in organizations with technical management that were barely technical and happened to get into those positions for other reasons, yet they somehow made more in bonuses and raw salary than ICs.

These two things have made me want to focus on getting into management as soon as possible. (I'm 28.) I might hate the additional responsibility, or I might not, but I feel like going this direction will give me some more upside than I currently have now.

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That's one of the reasons I got out of programming, was the salary ceiling. Sure, your first job hop as a programmer will probably get you a 20% or so increase! That gets your hopes up. Then your next one will be only 10% or so, and by the time you're 20 years into your career, you're barely getting any pay raises by changing company.

And if you think that changes by just being a different kind of individual contributor, you're probably wrong. You will still hit a salary cap even if you go into project management or product management--often at a lower $$$ figure than as a programmer. Maybe that changes when you get into people management--I don't know.

If you want to break through that ceiling, you need to have a position that includes a path to significant ownership. That's why bankers and lawyers have a path to becoming partners in the firm, and doctors have a path to private practice. A handful of worthless stock options at a startup doesn't count.

Anecdotal, but I am not exagerrating when I say about a quarter of the developers I'm friends with (i.e. hang out with outside of work) make substantially more than a new partner at a big firm.

Source: They discussed their negotiations with me so I know their compensation, and I used to work as a CPA at one of the big 4

Given that total partner compensation is usually $1MM/year+ (on the low-end), those developer are HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE outliers (or are mostly comp'ed in stock options, and we know how that goes)

At the big 4 firm I was at, I can say positively that total partner compensation did not start out anywhere close to 1 million/year

Oh, wow. I thought it did. My bad!

The thing, though, is that making the leap into management often puts you on that pathway to ownership since you have more visibility and exposure to the business and the projects you take on are usually bigger/higher-risk.

There are places where technical leadership runs in parallel to people leadership, but I feel like those are in the minority...

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