All engineers will eventually become 'managers', right?
@thebigk
•
Oct 27, 2024
Oct 27, 2024
1.5K
The corporate hierarchy is an interesting structure and I've failed to understand it. The typical growth of an engineer within an organization follows this path-
Intern / Fresh Grad -> Engineer Trainee -> Member of the technical staff -> Module Lead -> Team Lead (Management role begins here) -> Project Lead (less technical, more managerial) -> Project Manager (mostly managerial) -> Domain / Business Lead (purely managerial) and so on.
The point is - you all will ultimately become 'managers' where you'll be dealing mostly with PPTs, Excel & Emails more than your compilers, instruments, wires, software tools et al. You will no longer be programming in Java and thinking how to make your code more efficient; but wondering what words to type in email to keep the client happy & satisfied. It's happened to many of my friends and I'm sure, most of you!
This may be a good news for those of you who aspire to get into management role as you advance in your career. However, there is a growing number of engineers who really want to stick to their 'roots' and want to continue contributing to technology, writing actual code in Java, Python and ASP than worry about 'people management'.
I see a few corporates have introduced two growth tracks for their employees - managerial & technical. However, it's far from being perfect (IMHO). If you want to 'grow' within an organization or advance in your career; you will ultimately have to become a manager. Else you'll have to be content with your role as an engineer and become a technical architect (which seems to be the top post in the technical field). But it's more of a 'consultant' type role than actual, hard-core engineering.
Is there a way out? Have you thought of this for your own career?
Intern / Fresh Grad -> Engineer Trainee -> Member of the technical staff -> Module Lead -> Team Lead (Management role begins here) -> Project Lead (less technical, more managerial) -> Project Manager (mostly managerial) -> Domain / Business Lead (purely managerial) and so on.
The point is - you all will ultimately become 'managers' where you'll be dealing mostly with PPTs, Excel & Emails more than your compilers, instruments, wires, software tools et al. You will no longer be programming in Java and thinking how to make your code more efficient; but wondering what words to type in email to keep the client happy & satisfied. It's happened to many of my friends and I'm sure, most of you!
This may be a good news for those of you who aspire to get into management role as you advance in your career. However, there is a growing number of engineers who really want to stick to their 'roots' and want to continue contributing to technology, writing actual code in Java, Python and ASP than worry about 'people management'.
I see a few corporates have introduced two growth tracks for their employees - managerial & technical. However, it's far from being perfect (IMHO). If you want to 'grow' within an organization or advance in your career; you will ultimately have to become a manager. Else you'll have to be content with your role as an engineer and become a technical architect (which seems to be the top post in the technical field). But it's more of a 'consultant' type role than actual, hard-core engineering.
Is there a way out? Have you thought of this for your own career?
