Most companies have no use for very senior ICs. They don’t have much difficult work and a lot of managers want to involve themselves in technical decisions so once you have reached a certain level there is no room to grow. Either go into management or stagnate.
A fair number of people get "stuck" at the senior level because they enjoy being ICs more than they enjoy being managers, but their company promotion track doesn't support having high leveled ICs so they either have to accept less money and prestige, or force themselves into a role that they don't like.
The problem: while there is absolutely a need for very senior level ICs, there is simply less of one than there is for managers, so despite parallel career tracks existing, advancement often substantially more available via a management track.
Yup, that's a common career path mistake companies do - making the only possible 'next step' for senior engineers to become managers. If your company doesn't have a strong career path for senior ICs, you should push for one
I've a feeling that Senior Engineer is going to go forever. Trying to move into technical managerial roles not working out since new companies don't want to make ICs into managers.
In my experience, many companies legitimately don't really know what to do with very senior engineering staff. And how many distinguished engineers or principal engineers or technical fellows do you really need for your relatively straightforward technical challenges anyway? The IC track often fails to work in practice for the simple reason that technical work at an extremely high level is just not needed at many companies as much as engineers want to believe. Very senior ICs are also difficult to manage in the sense that the more you pin them down to specific work or projects the less you benefit from their skills. But sometimes all you need is to be able to assign someone to a specific project that isn't all that glorious or interesting or hard but is valuable and needs to be done by a certain time.
ICs reach a local maximum at some point. Most companies aren't solving problems that are hard enough to warrant executive-level equivalent engineering roles (except organizational ie. management of said engineers).
They do, but it's vastly easier to get promoted to those levels as a manager, because the organization needs managers to function, but super senior ICs are less critical.
Depends on the role. Lots of companies are cutting out middle managers. Existing engineering managers across the industry are being asked to lead larger teams and even write code. From what I can see senior ICs are still very much in demand.
I think the important point that's being missed is that super senior ICs are usually promoted for specific reasons. You're making it sound like they are a disposable commodity. But in my experience someone is super senior IC because they have proven to add key value when it was really needed and nobody else was up to the task.
Uhhh no...? On the contrary in big tech u can stay ic up to even director level. Manager level ics are very common. It's the opposite of what you described
I mean the essence of the problem comes down to people management. If you mean the pure technical role, then yes that's what I am referring to which has far less positions. And usually your competition would be the elites. Because many ICs try to avoid people management.
I am not talking about whether there is a such a path for ICs. I am talking about the numbers problem. The unfortunate truth is that there are far more positions involves people management. Engineering manager is good example because ICs can wield their technical skills. But still, this roles still requires you to do substantial people management.
A lot of tech companies have figured out pushing ICs into management is counter-productive and have IC tracks with very high ceilings. Until you're a principal/fellow pulling down $500k+ you haven't hit the IC asymptote yet. And yes this exists outside of just FAANG.
The corollary is that you often will have to stick around more than a year or two to get promoted into the senior+ ranks due to the scope of work and actually seeing large initiatives through.
Or you can bounce around every 18 months from senior dev role to senior dev role and hit a ceiling with small marginal gains a lot sooner.
Once you understand how the industry churns and burns and doesn't really give much credence for capability as you age - it becomes disheartening to try and want to be an IC. Most people see the writing on the wall for being an older IC therefore they move into management or product or other roles.
The problem is that there isn't really a well-defined or stable career path upwards from IC that isn't some variation of role handling politics/delegation/process improvement, and because you're expected to "age out" of being an IC you really have no choice.
Some go into management for pay and promotions, not because they want to. Long term, IC is often a dead end. Especially at mismanaged companies, which are, (see this post) not exactly uncommon.
I am a senior IC transitions to management. I think these articles leave out a very significant part of the equation and that is compensation and career mobility. Generally the management track at higher levels has more openings. If you stay in the IC track, there are going to be much fewer openings at that level with appropriate compensation. This is particularly true the more specialized your knowledge is. Moving to management track provides more opportunity at the same/similar or greater compensation. The exception to this are the FAANG companies but in my experience it’s way easier to get in through the leadership ladder than through the senior IC ladder. At least that was my experience in the 2 I’ve worked for. In one of the FAANG I worked for, I joined as a senior IC but was given a very non-senior manager and was effectively treated as a junior engineer during the 1st year.
I think most of us in the tech field overestimate the number of jobs where a high level IC can be comped equivalent to low level management. That’s really not the norm for most jobs, and often the pay gradients into management and senior management can be very steep.
Just to clarify when you say IC you mean literally an IC as opposed to the leadership path in an IC vertical? Many companies expect hither level ICs to be leaders in one way or another, you don’t need to go down the management path.
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