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Comment by mmmBacon | Hacker News Reader

I am a senior IC transitions to management. I think these articles leave out a very significant part of the equation and that is compensation and career mobility. Generally the management track at higher levels has more openings. If you stay in the IC track, there are going to be much fewer openings at that level with appropriate compensation. This is particularly true the more specialized your knowledge is. Moving to management track provides more opportunity at the same/similar or greater compensation. The exception to this are the FAANG companies but in my experience it’s way easier to get in through the leadership ladder than through the senior IC ladder. At least that was my experience in the 2 I’ve worked for. In one of the FAANG I worked for, I joined as a senior IC but was given a very non-senior manager and was effectively treated as a junior engineer during the 1st year.

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More openings at higher levels? That's just at odd with how organizational structure works. For engineers, at least, you need about 1 manager per 8 ICs. Going up the ladder, you probably need about the same number per level, so: 8 managers of managers per first level manager, and so on. If you have team managers, directors, and VPs, you should need:

1 VP per

8 directors per

64 team managers.

So, how are there more openings at higher levels?

Because every year there's some turnover, so your senior IC has a shot at getting some reports. Meanwhile, the incentive for upper management to promote a senior IC to super-senior IC or fellow or whatever is slight.

There are more openings for managers at higher levels with the same or higher compensation than for high ICs simply because there are fewer problems that have the scope for such a senior engineer. A FAANG I worked at might have a need in an org for a few director level ICs. These ICs in my experience are few and far between. ICs at this level make same money as management track. In my experience not many teams within an org have scope for an IC at that level Making it more difficult to transfer within the organization. Yet at the same time there are many director level managers because there are many teams and lower level managers to manage within those orgs. Additionally, a director level manager is considered somewhat generic and has an easier time moving around in the company with things that are tangential to their domain. My current company is not a FAANG but I can tell you that I see the same thing there.

GP means more openings in management track than in similar level IC-expert track. Which makes sense seeing

1) in those 8 person teams you mention there may not always be a place for an expert IC

2) companies often reserve the IC-expert budget slots for internal IC promotions while relying on management slots on external recruitment to a higher degree

I think often what you'll see on the IC side is above the Senior level (Principal, Distinguished, Fellow, etc.) there are fewer available roles. I've been in organizations where the highest level you could go is Distinguished Engineer and each VP would have one Distinguished Engineer and several Directors. Using your example breakdown, there are 8 possible director positions under a VP while there is 1 possible DE position under the VP.

Additionally, it can be easier to transition to an equivalent or higher role from one company to another on the management side. Most companies are open to hiring a VP from outside but often the highest levels of IC roles are only filled by those with significant experience within the company.

Yes, this. Same background, similar story (I went into tech strategy consulting instead).

The knowledge and ability to do tech work is great, but many jobs require that AND some other skill set (sales, research, communication, people management, etc). Those jobs also tend to be very well paid.

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