| ▲ | toast0 a day ago |
| > but for most techies, the most useful goal is to make money fast in a way that doesn't drain your life energy. And most of the time, this means responding to opportunities, not sticking to your guns. For example, a lifetime IC job may be ultimately worth less than a management job that gets you to VP level in a decade. If you can switch to management without draining your life energy, go for it? I hope you're a good manager. Personally, all of my experiences managing people have been very draining. |
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| ▲ | paxys a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| Exactly. If making good money without taking on too much stress was the goal, my advice to everyone would be to become a senior/staff IC at a decent company and stay in that role till retirement. |
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| ▲ | gtirloni a day ago | parent [-] | | I think the stress at senior/staff will be there no matter what but if you aren't especially suited for the management track, the stress of being a manager will be 10x. If you're suited, then I'd argue it will be 1x or maybe less. I've attempted to follow the traditional/expected progression path of senior->management and had a horrible experience each time. Even though I was getting praised for the work,it was taking way more energy from me to the point of burning out much faster than anything at the IC level. |
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| ▲ | skeeter2020 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Draining but also rewarding? I think work is supposed to be hard and tiring - seems like most things of value are - but if it sucks your life force permanently that's not a good thing. I've found management is a bit of a muscle that can be worked and you increase your energy reserve with time & practice. Similar to being an IC I've found it's fear that drains the most, and building a perspective of "I don't know exactly how to do this (nobody really does) but we'll figure it out." has been immensly valuable. |
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| ▲ | toast0 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | I can see how it could be rewarding, but it wasn't for me. Since I don't need to do and don't enjoy it, and other people are better at it, I can leave it for someone else and be thankful my circumstances allow for that. | |
| ▲ | NilMostChill a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I think work is supposed to be hard and tiring I suppose that depends on what kind of work you are talking about and your perspective on what different kinds of work really are. I wouldn't consider "The thing i do so me and my family don't starve" to have an inherent need to be hard or tiring. Whereas "The thing i do to fill up my time with something i feel is meaningful" might have a hard and/or tiring component, but only if you personally feel like the hard/tiring part is required. Things can be rewarding without being draining and value is subjective. |
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| ▲ | suzzer99 a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| There's also a risk going to into management that you don't have as a much more indispensable developer. My friend is great developer who transitioned to management, then got laid off 2 years later when the company hired a bunch of Amazon layoff casualties who pushed out all the other management. All the developers under her were retained. |
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| ▲ | kyleee 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | Is it more likely to happen as manager or dev? I suppose that is the important question, to which I don’t know the answer | | |
| ▲ | suzzer99 19 hours ago | parent [-] | | From my experience it's manager and not close. Good devs are hard to find, especially devs who have built some stuff and can make fixes in 5 minutes that might take another dev a week to get up to speed. |
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