Ask HN: Promoted beyond my level of competence? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Promoted beyond my level of competence?

15 pointsdirengthrow12 comments

Throwaway. September of last year, I had been at my (small, non-engineering focused) company for 6 months as a Lead Engineer. My boss quit, and as the highest ranking / most qualified, I was offered the position of Director of Engineering, with the promise that a CTO would be hired soon. Received a 20% raise and a lot more responsibility. I looked at it as a challenge, but probably would not have applied for the job. Fast forward, I've now been in charge for 8 months (no CTO hire yet) too stressed, and not really enjoying all of the random troubleshooting, prioritizing, politics, and managing the team. I don't get to write code too much anymore.

Anyone else been in a situation? Is this an example of the Peter Principle? Is it ok that I don't enjoy these challenges as much as I enjoy technical challenges?

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I don't think you've been promoted beyond your level of competence, I think you enjoy coding more than managerial troubleshooting. There are lots of articles on engineers who prefer engineering more than managing.

Not what you're asking for, but you have a pretty strong hand to play right now. If you went to the CEO and listed the issues that you're dealing with that you would expect the CTO to deal with.

Then say, "These are basically executive-level functions. I'm happy to handle them, but if you aren't planning on hiring a CTO, I'd like the title of VP Engineering and another 20% raise."

Great point. I think partially I'm extra hard on myself because I feel like this was a blown opportunity get kick ass, take names, and become VPE. But instead, I came to the realization that climbing the managerial ladder isn't what I wanted.

I am in the same position.. got recently promoted to manage a ~20 person team (analytics not programming). It sucks not being able to do actual analysis/project work anymore and the politics are infuriating.

That said, the experience is very valuable. I am planning to take off to start a company soon so managerial experience is definitely handy (not to mention the extra pay!)

My advice is to work on a technical side project to keep your soul from getting crushed (either at work or personal) and learn from the job till you figure out what you want to do next.

Yes, the situation you describe is classic Peter Principle. Having the skills to manage people, politics, & priorities requires a special (albeit learnt) skill-set. Senior leadership obviously trusted you and more importantly, you were Johnny-on-the-spot. It's OK, only a whack-job actually welcomes those headaches. Now that you've 'enjoyed' the exalted Director status, ideally where do you want to go from here? What would stretch you professionally?

Great question! I've been trying to define the metric by which I measure my success. The salary has been good, as has the ability to mentor and grow my team. I think what I would really love is to have the confidence to build my own thing and be the driver of the car rather than an efficient engine.

Good-- you've got a huge opportunity to leverage this platform for your next act. Use this time to salt away cash, author your action plan, and gain managerial experience. Think of it as grad school, 24 months up and out.

I'm setting this as my desktop background. Thanks!

if you're interested in building your own thing, I've just started looking for a co-founder with your level of experience. you can email me at lettersnumbersandperiods24 [at] gmail if you might be interested

Sounds like I'd be building your thing?

Personally, I don't think so. I'm still young and probably still naive about a lot of things, but I think the best leaders, in my own experience, have been those who didn't want the position, who used to be engineers themselves. You may have an insight someone with an MBA might not, and unless you're performing poorly according to your companies guidelines, I wouldn't say you're incompetent.

while you may have been promoted beyond your skill set, you can always develop more skills, and as I said, you may have insights that someone else might not see, you'll have more rapport with those you manage because you once worked among them, and I think, since you're stressed, you might care more than someone who was hired off the street.

Maybe you're a great leader _because_ you're stressed by important decisions and responsibility?

Do you want to keep doing the job if they get the CTO so you're not overloaded? Or do you want to get out of management?

There's nothing wrong with deciding you don't want to climb the management ladder, but getting "un-promoted" is something where you'll probably want to find a new job. Fortunately, almost everyone is trying to hire competent senior developers, so you should be able to find a new gig before too long - and probably get yet another pay raise to go with it.

> getting "un-promoted" is something where you'll probably want to find a new job.

That's an interesting point. Anyone gone through this that could share their experience with taking a promotion and then "giving it back"?

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