Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

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I think you underestimate the job mobility that is lost when you transition from being an individual contributor into someone on the management track.

The reality is, there are very few EM and above jobs, and job security is tough - if I have to choose between firing an EM or a SWE, I'd fire the EM first because I can always find another replacement or split their responsibilities across multiple individual contributors and the PM.

If an EM is laid off or fired, it's extremely difficult to find another role, and it truly is a terminal position. Why would I hire a laid off or fired EM or Director when I can promote internally or hire someone from within my network?

Additionally, back when I was an SE, if we had a deal go bad in order to protect our ass we'd blame the EM so that we can have a head on the platter to hand our CRO, unlike a seasoned SWE who can push back and argue PM requirements were unclear and PM can argue that sales+product was aligned.

> if I have to choose between firing an EM or a SWE

When does this choice ever come up?

My experience is that most engineers are seen as interchangeable while most EMs aren't.

Only time I've seen EMs fired for economic reasons is when a larger amount of engineers were also laid off.

> When does this choice ever come up

Fairly often, but we usually manage them out so that line-level engineers don't get paranoid and jump ship.

When an EM is suddenly shifted to work on another project, or all you ICs are suddenly talking to other managers or staffed on other projects, that's us as organizations managing out the malcontent and messaging to them that their time is up.

Anecdotally, pretty often. Whenever there is an engineering org failure, whether it be missed deadlines, unreliable software, missed KPIs, etc, there is no such thing as a truly blameless org. Somebody will be accountable in the eyes of leadership, and that boils down to this very choice.

Was it the devs fault for shipping code with a disastrous edge case, or the EMs fault for over- allocating work, resulting in less-refined code and a minimal review process that let the defect slip into production? Just as an example.

I agree at the first-line manager level (which this article is about), it's tough to get hired from outside, so getting the same position somewhere else after a layoff will be a tough job search.

My comment was more on the next levels - there seemed to be about as many high-level technical roles as managers (paid similarly) where I worked in biotech (that might be a different situation for software-only companies.) And there were more Directors/VP's than Principals/Fellows for sure. So at some point the "ladder width" crosses over.

And if you get laid off as a senior IC, good luck getting hired into another IC position. Age discrimination is real. The robust network is a must for anyone, manager or IC, in this case.

> My comment was more on the next levels - there seemed to be about as many high-level technical roles as managers (paid similarly) where I worked in biotech (that might be a different situation for software-only companies.) And there were more Directors/VP's than Principals/Fellows for sure. So at some point the "ladder width" crosses over.

Yea. Biotech is different. The equivalent of a VP for a specific formulation at a Pfizer would be a Staff or Principal Product Manager at a Salesforce.

In software, Engineering Managers have increasingly become solely people+program managers with a bit of a technical component.

EMs aren't expected to own product - that's PMs. Additonally, EMs aren't expected to own architecture - that's Principal and Distinguished Engineers. All that leaves EMs is program management.

I think you over estimate how valuable really good Principal level talent is when you have AIs that can take over for entire teams.

As an older and higher up engineer, I worry more for the youngsters than myself. I'll find a spot. I'm using AI, I'm doing things at rates that are pretty crazy.

That's all powered by decades of good decision making practice. Youngsters don't have that. They don't have the painful lessons hard earned.

> I think you over estimate how valuable really good Principal level talent is when you have AIs that can take over for entire teams.

I think you mean underestimate.

A good principal engineer (and they almost always are good) is someone who can understand both business requirements as well as the architectural foundations that underlay the product itself.

Principal (and Principal track Staff, Senior, and early-career) SWEs aren't going anywhere. In fact in an LLM-driven world, their domain experience is much more critical.

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