Will becoming Manager later in the career impact my career progression?
I am a Computer Science bachelor degree holder who graduated in 2014. My overall work experience has been in BigTech or Fortune 500 companies. I had an opportunity to become Manager at Expedia back in 2022 but chose to go to BigTech as an IC due to a much better pay back then.
My main goal is to become EM. I have close to 11 years of work experience and might take atmost 2 years to become EM. Is it a little late to become a manager? My concern is that if I become EM a little later in the career, my whole career progression (to EM1, EM2, Director, VP etc) would be delayed since average work experience before becoming an EM these days is generally 10 years.
Morever I have received feedback to become an A player in current role before getting considered for EM path? How can I fastrack my transition to EM path?
Discussion
(1 comment)- 2
10 days agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroSo at Big Tech companies at Microsoft, there should be an equivalent EM level for each IC level, so you shouldn't "lose" any career progression by staying as an IC for a while. For example, Meta principal engineer [E8] maps to engineering director [D1]. I knew an Instagram E8 who was able to switch directly to D1 - They didn't have to waste time going through the manager ranks first.
Morever I have received feedback to become an A player in current role before getting considered for EM path? How can I fastrack my transition to EM path?
There's several components here:
- Establish yourself as a very high-performing IC and get to Staff (which I think is Principal at Microsoft since they skip Staff). Follow the advice from the senior -> staff course here: Grow From Senior To Staff Engineer: L5 To L6
- Show strong ability mentoring and growing other engineers. The most concrete way to measure your progress here is to see how fast you can get other engineers promoted. I need to make a course on this, but in the meantime, check this out: [Case Study] Mentoring Junior SWEs [E3] to Senior [E5] In Just 2.5 Years At Meta
- Assuming you have a good relationship with your manager and a decent track record at Microsoft by now, start having those deep (and maybe awkward) conversations with your EM about your own desire to become an EM and how you two can forge a path together to make that happen.
