The choice between becoming a manager or staying as an individual contributor depends on your career goals and strengths. Managers focus on people management and team impact but have less control over their career growth, while ICs have more autonomy and career mobility.

The term "IC" (individual contributor) has negative connotations of laziness and lack of ambition.

Sometimes incompetent management can actually offer advantages in terms of resource allocation and project autonomy. In poorly run companies, the lack of clear objectives and performance evaluations can let employees pursue their own goals. Conversely, well-run companies with strict performance metrics and resource management inadvertently stifle such initiatives, as employees prioritize meeting pre-set targets over exploration.

Architects should help guide engineering teams by making strategic, high-impact decisions while still allowing team members to have ownership of various parts of the team’s overall work. This means carefully considering decisions and their reversibility, along with documenting potential impact before acting.

Promotions to Staff Engineer focus on sustained, measurable impact aligned with company goals, often demonstrated over at least six months. Leveraging people, writing, and high-quality code multiplies your influence, differentiating higher-level ICs from others. Building a strong internal brand through quality work, collaboration, and effective communication is necessary.

This Redditor regrets becoming an Engineering Manager, finding the role soul-sucking, boring, and tedious. They miss the hands-on coding work they used to do and feel the management role is significantly different and more complex than being a lead. Commenters note that management is not a progression from engineering but rather a different job entirely.

To progress in your career, focus on impactful projects that align with your skills and interests rather than settling for easy tasks. You should take control and proactively seek out high-impact projects that contribute to company goals and your own career development. These projects should challenge you and it’s easier to work on something challenging if it’s also work that is meaningful to you, aligns with your strengths, and has a significant impact on your company. When you find an area you excel in, invest time and energy to become an expert and the go-to in that area.

To get promoted, you need to take charge of the process and strategically increase your impact. Start by aligning with your manager on your goals early in the cycle, then identify and work on areas for improvement. Seek out challenging projects aligned with the next level and take on a greater leadership role. Build trust with managers by demonstrating ownership and reliability and be a positive force on your team by helping others.

Companies frequently recruit seasoned product professionals with the expectation of scaling their products yet fail to grant them decision-making authority. Without this power, product managers struggle to succeed. Strategies to cope with such scenarios include shifting focus from features to outcomes, relying on data over opinions, minimizing bridging communication, and prioritizing learning over extensive planning.

Planning a career can be approached with the same strategic mindset used in product development. The idea is to leverage the skills and methodologies honed in product management—such as setting clear priorities, defining milestones, making trade-offs, and establishing success metrics—to foster personal and professional growth. One effective analogy presented is to treat oneself as a product. This perspective encourages individuals to consider what changes they would implement in their own development and when they would "ship" their next version. By adopting this disciplined approach, one can create a structured plan for career advancement, similar to how a product manager would outline a roadmap for a product's evolution. Investing time in personal growth can feel indulgent, especially when faced with a busy workload. However, dedicating just a couple of hours each week to self-improvement can yield significant benefits, not only enhancing personal capabilities but also enabling better support for colleagues and teams. To effectively plan a career, several tactics can be employed: 1. **Year in Review Vision**: Each year, create a vision statement akin to a press release for the upcoming year. This exercise helps clarify realistic goals and outlines actionable steps to achieve them, such as planning family trips by identifying specific timelines and responsibilities. 2. **Incorporate Growth Goals in Performance Reviews**: Set 1-2 personal growth objectives during performance evaluations, detailing deliverables and tactics. This structured approach ensures that goals are specific and measurable, fostering accountability and support from managers and peers. 3. **Reflect on Learning**: Regularly assess personal growth by asking, “What have I learned recently?” This reflection acts like a performance dashboard, helping to identify and acknowledge new skills, which can then be leveraged for further development. 4. **Seek Feedback**: Conduct informal "customer research" by asking colleagues what skills are necessary for success in desired roles. This proactive approach to feedback can reveal gaps in knowledge and skills, allowing for targeted development. 5. **Iterate and Evolve**: Recognize that, like product development, career planning is not linear. Outcomes can be unpredictable, and flexibility is essential. Embrace the learning process, allowing for adjustments and new directions as needed. By prioritizing personal growth through these strategies, individuals can navigate their careers with intention and adaptability, ultimately leading to more fulfilling professional journeys.

Companies frequently recruit seasoned product professionals with the expectation of scaling their products yet fail to grant them decision-making authority. Without this power, product managers struggle to succeed. Strategies to cope with such scenarios include shifting focus from features to outcomes, relying on data over opinions, minimizing bridging communication, and prioritizing learning over extensive planning.

Companies frequently recruit seasoned product professionals with the expectation of scaling their products yet fail to grant them decision-making authority. Without this power, product managers struggle to succeed. Strategies to cope with such scenarios include shifting focus from features to outcomes, relying on data over opinions, minimizing bridging communication, and prioritizing learning over extensive planning.

Companies frequently recruit seasoned product professionals with the expectation of scaling their products yet fail to grant them decision-making authority. Without this power, product managers struggle to succeed. Strategies to cope with such scenarios include shifting focus from features to outcomes, relying on data over opinions, minimizing bridging communication, and prioritizing learning over extensive planning.

Companies frequently recruit seasoned product professionals with the expectation of scaling their products yet fail to grant them decision-making authority. Without this power, product managers struggle to succeed. Strategies to cope with such scenarios include shifting focus from features to outcomes, relying on data over opinions, minimizing bridging communication, and prioritizing learning over extensive planning.

Companies frequently recruit seasoned product professionals with the expectation of scaling their products yet fail to grant them decision-making authority. Without this power, product managers struggle to succeed. Strategies to cope with such scenarios include shifting focus from features to outcomes, relying on data over opinions, minimizing bridging communication, and prioritizing learning over extensive planning.

Companies frequently recruit seasoned product professionals with the expectation of scaling their products yet fail to grant them decision-making authority. Without this power, product managers struggle to succeed. Strategies to cope with such scenarios include shifting focus from features to outcomes, relying on data over opinions, minimizing bridging communication, and prioritizing learning over extensive planning.

Companies frequently recruit seasoned product professionals with the expectation of scaling their products yet fail to grant them decision-making authority. Without this power, product managers struggle to succeed. Strategies to cope with such scenarios include shifting focus from features to outcomes, relying on data over opinions, minimizing bridging communication, and prioritizing learning over extensive planning.

Companies frequently recruit seasoned product professionals with the expectation of scaling their products yet fail to grant them decision-making authority. Without this power, product managers struggle to succeed. Strategies to cope with such scenarios include shifting focus from features to outcomes, relying on data over opinions, minimizing bridging communication, and prioritizing learning over extensive planning.

Companies frequently recruit seasoned product professionals with the expectation of scaling their products yet fail to grant them decision-making authority. Without this power, product managers struggle to succeed. Strategies to cope with such scenarios include shifting focus from features to outcomes, relying on data over opinions, minimizing bridging communication, and prioritizing learning over extensive planning.

Companies frequently recruit seasoned product professionals with the expectation of scaling their products yet fail to grant them decision-making authority. Without this power, product managers struggle to succeed. Strategies to cope with such scenarios include shifting focus from features to outcomes, relying on data over opinions, minimizing bridging communication, and prioritizing learning over extensive planning.

Micromanagement, even when stemming from good intentions, can be hurtful to team productivity and morale. Great managers tailor their communication style for each employee individually, based on their personality and the work they're doing. Micromanagers check in constantly and try to help unsolicitedly.

Managing up is about helping your manager help you, improving your work relationship and team success by understanding their needs, and aligning your efforts with their goals. This strategy includes effective communication, proactive sharing of goals and challenges, and offering solutions that can make the team better.