The career path of software engineers and how to navigate it

During the talk, we explore the career path of a software engineer, what are the expectations at each level and how to acquire new skills to move between levels. We go over a way to decide on switching to management or staying on the individual contributor track. And we explore three strategies for continuous improvements.

Transcript

1. The career path of software engineers and how to navigate it Nikolay Stoitsev, Engineering Manager @ Uber
2. Career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer
3. Uber Software Engineer Software Engineer II Senior Software Engineer Senior Software Engineer 2 Staff Software Engineer Sr. Staff Software Engineer Principle Engineer Levels have different names Google SWE 2 SWE 3 Senior SWE Staff SWE Senior Staff SWE Principal Engineer Distinguished Engineer Google Fellow Facebook E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E8 E9
4. Can’t directly compare levels between companies
5. Full career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer ?
6. Good Engineer Good Manager
7. Full career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer Staff Software Engineer
8. Full career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer Engineering Manager Staff Software Engineer
9. Full career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer Engineering Manager Staff Software Engineer Senior Engineering Manager Principal Engineer Director Individual Contributor (IC) Ladder
10. Full career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer Engineering Manager Staff Software Engineer Senior Engineering Manager Principal Engineer Director Individual Contributor (IC) Ladder Manager Ladder
11. You can grow as an engineer and as a manager
12. • Is autonomous in writing code • Knows how to unblock themselves and ask for help • Can solve well defined tasks with supervision IC Ladder - Intern
13. • Knows how to unblock themselves • Helps other on the team • Can solve well defined tasks without supervision IC Ladder - SWE
14. • Demonstrate end to end ownership • Can solve any task with minimal supervision • Turn feedback in growth IC Ladder - SWE 2
15. • Leader in the projects they work on • Can solve ambiguous tasks • Sets culture and best practices in the team IC Ladder - SSWE
16. • Recognised leader outside of their team • Proposes solutions to problems spanning multiple teams • Drives big impact work across the company IC Ladder - Staff SWE
17. EM EM Sr. EM Director VP CTO Manager Ladder Director VP Sr. EM
18. • Responsible for single team • Sets direction and leads the execution • Grows the team Manager Ladder - EM
19. • Leads multiple big teams • Leads long term technical and business solutions across the teams Manager Ladder - Director
20. • Leads teams across multiple domains • Charts the future of the company • Establishes the culture Manager Ladder - VP
21. EM or IC? https://medium.com/hackernoon/a-voight-kampff-test-for-identifying-engineering-managers- bb8512c70857
22. Do you care more about people or technology?
23. How to become a manager? Sr. Software Engineer Tech Lead EM Expert
24. 82% of the people made into managers don’t succeed in the role source: Gallup State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders, 2015
25. How to become an engineering manager?
26. How to become a product manager?
27. How to become a technical product manager?
28. How to grow
29. Every career step is hard
30. Working hard is just 25% of the formula
31. Switching jobs doesn’t help
32. Master the skills on the previous level
33. Requires mindset changes from the previous level
34. Has new skills to be mastered
35. So growth has to be directed
36. Competency framework https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/career-development/career-matrix.html
37. It’s not a checklist
43. Conscious Competence learning model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence
44. Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetence Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence
45. Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetence Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence
46. Pick one growth area at a time
47. Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetence Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence
48. Understand how to do it and why
49. Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetence Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence
50. Practice it
51. Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetence Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence
52. Career conversations
53. You need to have career conversations with your manager
54. Have regular 1:1
55. Ask for feedback
56. Communicate your goals clearly
57. Never let your role define your impact, let your impact define your role Managing up
58. The single best hack to constantly become better
59. Find a mentor
60. Mentor - someone who you admire and knows you
61. There is no stack overflow for your career growth
62. It’s like friendship
63. What to talk about?
64. Build relationship
65. “Code review” your decisions and reactions
66. Ask for technical advice - wisdom and opinion
67. Better to be outside of your team
68. The second best hack
69. Be a mentor
70. Scale yourself with writing
71. The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change - Camille Fournier
72. https://medium.com/@daniel.heller/ten-principles-for-growth-69015e08c35b
73. https://medium.com/darius-foroux/how-writing-changed-my-life-8786ecd5650c
74. https://leadingsnowflakes.com/
75. https://deprogrammaticaipsum.com/2016/04/25/being-a-developer-after-40/
76. Q&A