Hacker News Reader

Comment by pavel_lishin | Hacker News Reader

For a lot of software engineers - especially those of us who are actually senior engineers, not folks who've been working for 2 years since graduation - I don't think a promotion makes sense, anyway. From here, it's Staff or Principal (or management, which is fine for some folks, and anathema to others), and the raise does not justify the amount of effort the next level would require.

A lot of us are happy where we are, level-wise, and if we do want a significant raise, others have pointed out - we're more likely to get it by interviewing, not by getting promoted.

Now, granted, if you're gung-ho and really want the responsibility and the more interesting work that Staff/Principal will give you, fuckin' go nuts - I'm happy there are ambitious folks out there. I just want to do my job and then go play with my kid.

View on HN

Being financially secure and not caring about a promotion is the biggest superpower you can have at a tech company. Work on whatever projects you want. Skip whichever meetings you want. Don't want to waste multiple days writing a pointless report? Fine. Don't want to participate in org politics? All good. As long as you are doing decent work and have a good reputation among your peers the threat of firing will always be an empty one. And soon you'll start to realize how much of the work people do at any company, especially at higher levels, is just performative ass kissing.

Every single terrible job experience is the result of a shitty power tripping manager. Take away the manager's power over you and suddenly your job will be fun and fulfilling again.

> Being financially secure and not caring about a promotion is the biggest superpower you can have at a tech company.

And not being in the country on an H1B…

This is not a rant against H1B Visa holders. It’s a condemnation of the system that makes their ability to stay in the country contingent on their job.

I saw it first hand at AWS. When Amazon started Amazoning when I was working there, I knew what was up and wasn’t stressed, didn’t jump through the hoops to stay off PIP and when they gave me the choice of getting 4 months severance and “leave immediately”. I took the money and ran and got another job in 3 weeks.

My coworkers who were there on H1B, were definitely afraid, even if they did have more than enough money to hypothetically tide them over.

I knew I could get a job, a contract, start independent consulting or do something before my money ran out. That wasn’t an option for them.

For those who don’t know how the PIP process works at Amazon…

- if you choose to “leave immediately” instead of working through the PIP, you got one month of base pay for every year and partial year you worked there.

- if you failed the PIP (and you will), you got 1/3 of the original amount.

- of course you can appeal. But if you fail (and you will). You get 1/2 of the 1/3.

You think H1-Bs are bad? Trying being on an L1 :)

Why is L1 any worse ?

Unless I'm mistaken, you can transfer employers on an H1-B, and you have 90 days to find a new job if you get laid off. On an L1 you are immediately out of status when your employment is terminated, with no option of transfer

I don’t feel as bad for L1 Visa holders. They came over specifically because they were already working for a specific company and that’s no different than being deployed in the military overseas and then having to leave once you leave the military.

From what I read, it’s also much easier to get and L1 Visas aren’t subject to the same caps and red tape.

I personally wouldn’t even move across the country beholden to a single company

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38474212

I would be very hesitant to create roots in another country - like buying house - dependent on one company and not having a back up plan and the expectation that it was temporary and a way to save a lot of money

I voluntarily went on an L1 so my spouse could work. H1b spouses cannot work.

Do you consider a “temporary deployment” (using my military analogy) or do you want to permanently be in the US?

From the context of my previous comments, I hope you don’t read that as anti- immigration question

My situation is already a little different because prior to my L1 I was already working in the USA on a different visa. So I worked in the USA, then outside the USA, then returned to the USA (upon which I picked the L1 over the H1B for my spouse). My feelings on whether I want to stay permanently have changed a bunch of times, but in the end, I probably won't get a choice. Both L1 and H1B have time limits, and due to COVID and my company doing various layoffs I probably won't get a green card in time.

When Elon cracked the whip in Twitter, everyone on H1B interviewed and eventually left. At the end, most people left at Twitter were US citizens and a few H1Bs. Yes they may not have the ability to just quit on a whim, but they certainly have the ability to quit. And that’s what people do.

Sure they can quit on their own volition.

But they couldn’t do like I could when I saw the writing on the wall when I was about to get Amazoned

Options for me:

1. F** it. I will just quit and start working on building up my own independent cloud consulting business (I worked in Professional Services)

2. Stick around until the official PIP comes and get a 3+ month severance and survive until my next vesting period. One of my former coworkers suggested this. He was a director at an F500 company and said he could at least get me a very well paying contract until he could get a position created for me once I got PIPd. He wanted me specifically.

3. The option I chose was to work for another consulting company that didn't offer sponsorships - I asked for another coworker who was looking.

> And not being in the country on an H1B…

> This is not a rant against H1B Visa holders. It’s a condemnation of the system that makes their ability to stay in the country contingent on their job.

They are always free to go back to their home countries.

Neither the US, nor their employer, is obligated to guarantee them anything more than the circumstances and conditions that the visa holders agreed to in the first place. The circumstances and conditions that the holders agreed to because they decided, voluntarily, that they would be better off in the US than in their home countries.

And companies take advantage of the situation. If they paid taxes and have the money to stay here without government assistance - besides unemployment that is paid into by their employer - who is it hurting to give them more than 60 days to find another job??

H-1B visa holders are generally not eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.

https://www.chugh.com/news/h1-b-workers-unemployment-benefit...

That’s even a better argument for extending the time they have to find another job.

> Every single terrible job experience is the result of a shitty power tripping manager.

Having been both employee and manager, it's hardly that one-sided. For example, having an employee coming in high is not the manager's fault.

why do you think employee had to get high :)

LOL

BTW, as my career progressed, I tended to shift my view of the manager as less of someone telling me what to do into a partner who was empowered to remove obstacles to my doing the job successfully.

> a partner who was empowered to remove obstacles to my doing the job successfully.

This is actually one of defined and quite successful current management models.

Mediocre managers hire, create, and retain mediocre reports, with an emphasis on create.

I welcome AI that replaces the mediocre bottom 80% of managers that lower a companies bottom line. The top 20% won't be replaced soon.

I once got a new boss who was one of these power trippers. He and I didn't get along. But I was making my customers happy and I was making his boss happy; my job was completely secure.

At review time he told me in a very condescending tone "I just don't think I can recommend you for a raise this year."

My response was "Oh good. That means I can do whatever I want."

Nobody had ever said that to him before. Shortly afterward he took a leave of absence for mental health reasons.

good on you!

Power move. Well done.

>Being financially secure and not caring about a promotion is the biggest superpower you can have at a tech company.

Highly relevant:

TIL what "FYIFV" means at Microsoft. "Fuck You, I'm Fully Vested" means that a person is so rich from Microsoft stock that he can be completely honest to coworkers and can leave anytime. <https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1ax59rb/til_w...>

I welcome our new AI middle management overlords.

May the PHBs R.I.P.

It doesn't work like this at all. PHBs exist because top management doesn't want to be even remotely concerned with employee management. Actually, not that many people do: you have bosses above you who expect you to push things in one direction, then you have your reports who tell you their story, you understand both sides have their merits but one is more important so in order to keep your job you do what you are expected to do. With some teams everything works fine, in other cases things go downhill. When you compare this with working with machines, it can be exhausting, unless you enjoy this kind of challenges.

But is this ivory tower hands off manager good for companies?

It seems the Musks and Ghosns of management reject this hands off approach and achieve great results.

As a Principal engineer, I would refuse to RTO and would look for another position or do the same and continue WFH if it's rewarding enough.

Most of the Staff/Principal engineers around you are not there because they don't have other (sometimes much better on the face of it) opportunities - we're here because of inertia and realm expertise.

Speaking as someone who tracked up the management chain….

Senior Software Engineer was the best job I ever had. The perfect balance of autonomy and responsibility.

150%.

I loved, loved, loved being a technical SME and engineer.

It was incredibly satisfying and fun. I got greedy and also enjoyed systems, so I moved into an architect role, then director/exec.

I have a great job and enjoy the company and mission… but the politics is exhausting.

I just had my annual “career check-in” or whatever they are calling it now at work. I’m at the crossroads level: stick as being a software engineer and accept I’m not smart enough to ever be promoted again on software engeering track, or head for management track.

My guess is I would be either an excellent manager or an appalling one. Either way, I have absolutely no wish to do it. My wife is saying I should go for it in order to continue climbing the ladder.

I can’t pretend I’m not glad to see someone who would have been happy sticking as well. Hopefully you get the chance to demote yourself soon :)

When I think of the SWE career ladder from IC to management, this Mitch Hedberg quote comes to mind:

"When you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things. All right, you're a stand-up comedian, can you write us a script? That's not fair. That's like if I worked hard to become a cook, and I'm a really good cook, they'd say, 'OK, you're a cook. Can you farm?'"

There's a reason there are IC and manager tracks at most companies employing devs. You can keep refining your craft as an IC and become a Staff/Principal/Distinguished. No need to become a manager to get promotions, more money and/or more responsibility.

For what it’s worth I don’t think that being promoted into a staff or principal role is about intelligence per se any more than going into management is. I was a principal engineer at my previous company, joined my current company as a senior engineer, and this time opted to try out the management ladder.

If anything, I think I probably exercise my technical expertise more as an engineering manager than I did as a principal engineer, but that’s probably a matter of difference in company culture and my current team. Generally I think both roles end up leaning on a mix of systems thinking, interpersonal skills, and generally the ability to have a vision and sell it to other people. As a principal engineer I was focused on the technical systems and the vision was about ways to make the organization I was working in more effective by setting a vision for what areas we invested in technically, how systems owned by different teams worked together, and in some cases involved getting hands on to help out or build a prototype.

As a manager I’m focused on an area of the product, business outcomes, and how to ensure that my team is productive over both a short and longer time horizon. It means setting a product vision, understanding the technical and organizational work needed to get there, and selling that vision to get the time and resources needed. Sometimes it means getting my hands dirty to build a prototype, or to take things off my team’s plate so they can be more effective.

I’ve been lucky that my recent jobs have all had enough interesting deep technical problems to go around and I’ve still been able to do some of that work, but neither role has involved the kind if regular deep technical work I had as a senior IC.

I think real senior roles are generally the place with the hardest technical problems, and moving up in any direction sets aside some of those problems in favor of learning to get leverage from influence.

When you liked the role of Senior Software Engineer, was the situation that you could trust that others in the company were doing a good job of covering the responsibilities outside your scope?

Or was it because the scope was nice, and you didn't much care what happened outside the scope?

(Both are valid ways that people look at jobs, at different times, and in different situations. Just interested in anecdata and insights into how I should think about hiring.)

I'm enjoying being a manager. My team is pretty small, though, only 3, sometimes 4 other people. I still do a lot of programming, but I'm also mentoring--which I find very rewarding--and I have a meaningful voice in some decision making. Also, my boss trusts me, and encourages me to use his authority on occasion, too (a plan I've come to calling "weaponizing the org chart"). I don't think I could do that if I was "just" a senior developer.

If it was so great, why did you not go back to it? Do you mean that it was great, if you disregard the pay? Or are you now overqualified and unable to downshift into it?

Me too. The reason my current and previous companies can handle their high throughput is 100% from my architecture but I have no actual responsibility and stress in my position.

I’m sure I could make a gnarly salary somewhere but I’m extremely happy with the free time that I have. Beats any other job that I’ve had by a mile.

The more important question is: how much is the pay raise from Senior -> Staff. For even the companies that pay generously, like Facebook, the median pay increases by about $150k in the US. If you look at companies like Dell, levels.fyi reports that the increase is barely $15k (https://www.levels.fyi/companies/dell-technologies/salaries/...)

Now if I were to choose, getting paid 15k less and stay remote in a LCOL area vs get that pay raise to live in a presumably more expensive city to RTO, it’s a no brainer. Even if I live in a HCOL area and I don’t go to the office, it is still a win. I live in the Bay Area, relatively close to the office and just commuting to the office, if I use public transportation, is about $300/month ($3600/year). If I drive, pay for parking, bridge tolls, and pay for lunch, I suddenly start spending $2000/month to RTO ($8 toll, $16 lunch and $25 parking 5 days a week). I’d need almost $40-50k pre tax raise to break even, which most companies refuse to give. And that is on top of time I waste commuting and the added work responsibilities I now have to take on.

The incentives to RTO are really not there.

The problem with the raise is that you often end up getting hired into a role at the high end of the comp range for that level, since during the application you have leverage. When getting promoted, you have less bargaining power - what are you going to do, refuse the raise because it's too small? So you get promoted out of highly paid senior into underpaid staff.

If you really want to be staff, you can try interviewing elsewhere for that position, and negotiate to get the high end of that.

When companies promote internally, they have a huge advantage against random employers on the market: There is vastly less uncertainty about the employee's value. The promotion you get has every reason to be competitive with open positions on the market. But they often seem to promote into underwhelming positions, perhaps they figure the employee would value staying at the same company.

The problem with staff though is that it is harder to meet expectations when you change companies than if you stay at the same company. The role often requires you to be able to navigate organizational barriers effectively to do your job. And at a new company, you need to be exceptional at making connections if you want to continue to be remote. At your current company, the time you put in as a senior allows you to have those connections and therefore continue to perform as a staff engineer. This barrier is why a lot of people continue to work at the same company with underwhelming raises.

The next level is also a pyramid level - aka - competition and stack rank and often political. A lot of people cannot be bothered with petty politics.

Yea, I’ve worked with folks in management who are just laser focused on the idea that offering leadership or management positions as a carrot to good developers is appealing. For some it is, but most of the time I find people just want to work on interesting problems and be appreciated for it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com