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Comment by SantiagoElf | Hacker News Reader

I started moving away from code-only positions once I reached 10 years in the industry - 2015.

Now, I am 37 transitioned and while still write A LOT of code ( mostly back-end, high performance APIs, DB stuff ), review a lot of code, but bareley touch front-end work. I grok it, can make the changes, but I am too old for front-end work.

At my role ( 1 level away from C-Level executives) it's not expected to code at all - just power point, diagrams and general corporate lingo, but I can't let myself down that path.

So, my suggestion - start transioning ASAP from just coding - move to managing people who code, then to managing people who manage other people who manage the people that code.

More money, more recognition - less stress in general.

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Another advice: you need to become a funnel for information and switch to delivery mindset.

Let's say there is a big project in your company called DigiRefresh - the projects aims to consolidate all data sources, standartize them and in the future extract correlated value via AI/ML - one of the most common projects in modern-day IT.

Now, someone at the TOP has secured N million dollars for this project, but he has also 5-6 other N million dollar projects. Such big projects are more or less the soldiers/power point slides of the C-level executive by which he justifies his existence to the board of the company.

All these projects on high-level sound like a must-do. Your job most probably will be to make the vision of the big guys into reality - deliver it. Which is a messsy process. Big guys don't care about the technology that much, they don't care how it will be done - they just want it done, because somebody commited to someone else for a date that makes somebody look good :)

So, your job 99% of the time is to deliver and deal with the small details like what techology will be used, how many people are needed for the tasks, orchestrate it and give yellow-green-red style reports to the top management.

The more you take away from their worry and the more time they have to play golf and the more seamless delivery you provide - the more you will raise in the corporate ladder.

>So, my suggestion - start transioning ASAP from just coding - move to managing people who code, then to managing people who manage other people who manage the people that code.

But how? In my woods, that's nearly impossible unless your boss has that planned for you and has the blessings of his bosses. They're the positions with the most gatekeeping therefore the nost difficult to get.

And less stress is not always guaranteed since you'll be taking shit from above and from below now.

By taking more responsibilities and delivering beyound your pay scale.

Prove that you can be trusted with deadlines, build a reputation for relentless on time delivery and take responsibility.

You will be suprised - that if you start taking OWNERSHIP of what you do - how fast people will come to you and literally beg you to be in their projects.

>By taking more responsibilities and delivering beyound your pay scale.

Is that a healthy advice for someone struggling with Burnout/depression like OP?

And I beg to differ. Taking on lots of work is by no means a guarantee to management promotion everywhere. Often management positions go by means of connections, and are awarded subjectively to the favorable people management likes most, not to the most productive people. That's why so many managers are clueless and nearly incompetent. Because it's not always a meritocracy.

> Is that a healthy advice for someone struggling with Burnout/depression like OP?

Yeah, depression/burnout is not real. It's just how a person decides to deal with high levels of stress. Stress will not go away. Better deal with it by pushing through it either by working more, going on vacations, sex trips, donations to charity causes, etc.

In the industry I am in - I didn't know anyone, before I started, hell, I even didn't know anyone in the city I moved to. It's all a struggle, endless struggle, like life is supposed to be.

Of course, you need to have conversational skills, soft skills, be able to hold a conversation in different topics, be funny, witty, smart and charming in order to be promoted.

You definetly can get promoted based on your own merrits WITHOUT relying on connections that you had before the job.

The trick is to build your conenctions on the basis of your work, soft skills and charisma WITHIN the company you want to grow.

I am sorry, but with most things in life - climbing the ladder is a competition - success is not guaruanteed, and being good at programming is not the only requirement.

>Yeah, depression/burnout is not real

I should have stopped reading your comment here.

What colour is YOUR Bugatti ? :P

A Bugatti doesn’t make you happier! After a certain threshold you don’t need more money to be happy … just more time!

thanks, i was thinking of getting into dev or engineering management, but all the positions i see require 5+ years of being an engineering manager.

so i'm a bit of a loss how to make that transition.

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