How do I effectively convince my director to let me leave into another org?
I'm a senior software engineer in big tech and onboarded into my company and role as a team lead for the past 6 months.
The project is almost complete, but work is not technically interesting and does not fit into my long term career goals.
My manager is getting promoted as director to another org, and I wish to join him. He said he fought hard to bring me along with him, but my current director would not allow it due to product/engineering resourcing requirements.
I expressed to my manager this was extremely disappointing news, and it's hard to see a future on this project/org. He said to talk to my director and we can follow up afterwards, because he didn't know just how much I wanted out.
I can't leave the company due to the current job market, my short tenure and golden handcuffs. But I'm afraid if I keep chugging along, I'm just going to burn out.
Any advice is much deeply appreciated.
![Senior Software Engineer [E5] at Meta company logo](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffirebasestorage.googleapis.com%2Fv0%2Fb%2Ftech-career-growth.appspot.com%2Fo%2Fcompany_logos%252Fmeta.jpeg%3Falt%3Dmedia%26token%3Da7a5bcc0-e178-4b5b-b71e-09bf6c6aefae&w=48&q=75){kind=small}
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Discussion
(2 comments)- 1
8 days agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroThis is a tough situation, but the good news is they probably gave you the answer: They are worried about resourcing.
The tricky part is that the better the engineer you are, the more worried engineering leaders are about losing you 😅.
Aside from following up with your manager to keep pushing, my recommendation is to scale yourself and make yourself replaceable. As a team lead, you should have some inclination of which teammates are full of potential. Start mentoring them and divvying out pieces of your scope for them to own. This has a lot of benefits:
- If you go on vacation, the team doesn't collapse
- You can zoom out and focus on bigger picture problems as you delegate existing pieces to your mentees
- Teaching is one of the best ways to reinforce learning
- Mentorship is fun and fulfilling!
Last but certainly not least, it gives you a path to leave without inducing a panic attack with your engineering director. After your mentees have a solid grasp on everything, you can share a document with your director about your exit plan and who would own what after you leave. In general, it's good to write down detailed plans - I wrote these plans all the time as a Meta tech lead whenever I went on a lengthy vacation.
This will take time, but the politics-oriented route of having your old manager convince the director will probably also take time. Might as well attack the problem from multiple angles in parallel, and if it doesn't work out, you still reap all the aforementioned benefits while becoming a better lead and engineer overall.
- 07 days agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
Why does your director want to keep you? There's probably a particular project they want to ship, or metric they want to hit.
Could you either:
- Talk about a transition plan where you do meaningful work toward that goal, and also help others on the team gain the knowledge you have?
- Talk about how the work you'd do on the other team will benefit your current director, and you'll be able to do much more there?
