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Comment by ecshafer | Hacker News Reader

There is a major gap in this analysis by not controlling for industry or companies. Engineering Manager is a very generic title, so this is going to get Start Ups, Big Tech, Little Tech, Enterprise, Contract Shops, etc. Staff Engineer is very uncommon in Enterprise or Contract shops, there you typically see SWE 1/2/3 -> Tech Lead -> Architect. Most Tech companies I think have more of a SWE 1/2/3 -> Staff Engineer -> Principal.

The other part is that Engineering Manager is a terminal position, I've known a few people who were manager for 20 years without ever going to Director / Exec whatever, its just a competitive jump and mathematically most will never go up. This is ALSO true for Senior -> Staff and Principle though. But Engineering Manager positions often have more of an upside with bonuses / incentives than Engineers get.

Finally it is ultimately a career change, and that should be the primary factor to consider.

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> Engineering Manager positions often have more of an upside with bonuses / incentives than Engineers get

Not really.

Staff Eng and above will end up making similar to an EM including bonuses and has much more job mobility. You have to remember that most EM roles only open up once you hit Staff, so you are basically taking much more responsibility and longer hours for a marginal salary impact.

Engineering Manager jobs are hard to come by and your job security is actually less than an individual contributor, because even if an initiative was delivered late due to no fault of your own, if sales is braying for blood in order to protect themselves after failing to meet quota, it's the EM's head that is offered on a silver platter.

> Staff Eng .... has much more job mobility

Not really.

Above Staff and Staff+ companies are usually looking for expertise in domain, in addition to cross org leadership. Unless you want to get hired with Sr title.

Management is different though, you have highly transferrable skillset, managing people, up and down.

> you have highly transferrable skillset

Of course this also means the pool of people who can do your job or quickly learn it includes essentially every other EM.

And many of those people are looking for jobs now.

For an IC, no one can become an expert in Rust overnight.

> Management is different though, you have highly transferrable skillset, managing people, up and down

Most tech companies are not hiring an EM without relevant domain experience. "People Management" is a table stakes skill in 2026 and Staff/Principal Engineers and Product Managers largely offer that as well as technical or product insight.

Additionally, it's something that can be cultivated in-house and is why internal promotions to EM tend to be preferred unless a director, principal engineer, or PM is getting their friend a job (which happens fairly often).

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