Do You Really Have to Become a Manager to Advance in Your Career?

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You start as a junior developer, happily delivering lines of code. Life is easy, you love your job, you are learning a lot. And then someone approaches you saying: "We need a tech leader for a new team, and you are the most experienced person available". You either become miserable or find your new calling, but your job is not really what it was before. And then someone approaches you saying: "We are looking for a new engineering manager, and you are the most experienced person available".

Is that really the most optimal career path? What could we do differently? Let's have a look at your talents and the talents needed for the job.

There are many different jobs in tech: writing code, leading teams, managing people and projects, helping others use your technology, teaching, research, debugging.




This talk has been presented at TechLead Conference 2023, check out the latest edition of this Tech Conference.

FAQ

A dual track in software engineering careers is a point where professionals decide whether to progress into management roles or continue as individual contributors, potentially tackling more complex projects and assuming titles like principal staff engineer.

The software engineer stepped down from her managerial role because she was unhappy with the shift away from coding, which led to negative emotions and eventually her departure from the company.

Job crafting involves modifying one's job from within to better align with personal skills and interests. This can include changing the tasks one performs, the way one thinks about their job, or their interactions with colleagues to enhance job satisfaction and meaningfulness.

The talk challenges the assumptions that career progression is linear and primarily defined by advancements in management, and that software engineers have a specific personality type or career path.

One can assess their talents by seeking feedback from trusted colleagues using questions like what one does well, and applying frameworks such as 'start, keep, stop' to identify strengths and areas for improvement.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where individuals with a moderate level of competence in a skill believe they are more competent than they are. In terms of career advancement, it highlights the challenges in self-assessing one's abilities as one progresses in their career.

Job satisfaction is crucial in career advancement as it significantly impacts one's motivation and happiness at work. Roles perceived as callings tend to bring higher satisfaction and are not necessarily higher in rank or pay.

Job crafting can significantly contribute to career development by allowing individuals to reshape their roles to better fit their strengths and interests, leading to increased job satisfaction, performance, and personal growth.

Marek Kalnik
Marek Kalnik
20 min
09 Mar, 2023

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Video Summary and Transcription

The Talk discusses the misconception that software career is a linear progression and shares a story of a software engineer turned engineering manager who wasn't happy. It explores the complexity of describing personality types in software engineering and the importance of considering talents, job meaning, and skill development when making career decisions. The Talk also emphasizes the significance of finding meaning in one's job, job crafting, and exploring different career paths. It concludes with the idea of challenging assumptions, assessing talents, and introspection for effective job crafting.

1. Introduction to Software Career

Short description:

I will be talking about the misconception that software career is a linear progression where we become managers after being software engineers. I'll share a story of a talented software engineer who became an engineering manager but wasn't happy and eventually left the company.

Hi. My name is Marek Kalnick, and I will be talking about carrier. I wanted to start with start with a story, a story about a very talented software engineer. She was great at her job, she was a great people person, and she was a great tech lead. So when our company needed a new engineering manager for me, she was a natural candidate to do this job, and I was quite sure that she'll succeed. Well, it turns out that six months into the role, she asked us to step down because she wasn't feeling it, and she wasn't happy with the fact that she was not coding anymore. And, at the end, she left the company a few months later because of all the negative emotions that have accumulated around this role, and this is something that is contrary to what is commonly believed that software, that software carrier is something linear, that we just move forward, we climb the ladder and one, sometimes, someday, we become a manager if we are good at what we do. and this kind of carrier is what we call a single track path.

2. Career Progression and False Assumptions

Short description:

We start as software engineers and can progress to become managers or even CTOs. Some people react to this by creating a dual track, where they can choose to stay as individual contributors and take on more challenging tasks. However, the reality is more complex. There are false assumptions that being a software developer requires a specific personality type and that career advancement is solely about moving forward.

So we start as software engineers, then we start becoming managers, we start with one team and then maybe a team of teams and then we can become a CTO, have an executive role. Some people try to react to that, react to that because obviously it doesn't work all the time. So some people try to react to that by creating what we call a dual track. What is a dual track? Dual track is basically a moment in your career when you need to decide whether you want to go to the managing role as described or you want to stay, keep being an individual contributor and maybe take some harder tasks and maybe work on some bigger projects in our role that maybe call principal staff engineer or something like this. Well, the reality is a bit more complex. So, what do we have, this difference in models, like complex reality and then the progression model that is boiled down to basically two tracks? I think that the root of it all are false assumptions. The first one is that being a software developer means a certain kind of personality. And the second one is our misconception about what does it mean to advance in a career, which creates an idea that we have a common progression path and there is a best step in this path which is just to move forward. So let's take a look at the first one.

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My team always has Fika, a traditional Swedish coffee break, scheduled every afternoon. Every couple of Fridays, we have team games planned to release some stress. 
Also, I tend to have a lot of free time to focus, which is nice but makes for a boring answer to this question!
Do you have some rituals or tools that keep you focused and goal-oriented?I'll admit that I've been struggling with staying motivated in the time of remote work. I've been remote with Spotify since onboarding a year ago, but my team is wonderful, and they help me when I'm down.
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So, whatever I'm working on, it ends up resulting in lots of opportunities for content.
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I also am a firm believer in inbox zero. I have my work inbox and my personal inbox, and I keep them both at zero. And I kind of use that as a to-do list. 
And if I'm not feeling excited about working for some reason, I will often hop on my Onewheel, which is an electric skateboard that only has one giant wheel in the middle. It's just a total blast, and I'll hop on that with my backpack and a charger, and I'll go to a Starbucks or a park just to declutter my mind.
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But the biggest thing I'm excited about is Remix. That's huge. It eliminates a lot of problems that are solved well other tools, but when I'm using Remix, I don't have those problems, so I don't need those clusters.
You already said that teaching is an integral part of the learning process, and you stand your word since you're also a full-time educator. What inspired you to enter this field?I have been a teacher for as long as I can remember. I grew up in a church where you talk in front of your peers from a very young age, and my mom was an elementary school teacher, so teaching has just always been a part of me. 
I really just enjoy sharing what I'm learning with others. As far as teaching technical topics, I gave my first workshop when I was still a student at Brigham Young University. With my fellow, we taught how to use AngularJS, and I got Firebase to sponsor pizza so they would show up, and that was pretty fun.
Then I started teaching on the side at egghead.io right after I'd graduated. That was when I first got a paycheck for teaching. And I realized that teaching could be quite lucrative and support my family and me as a full-time endeavor. So I did it — I quit my job. I'm a very risk-averse person, so I'd done teaching as a side hustle for four years just to verify that I could make this work.
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We talked about React and Remix. Are there any other open-source projects that you'd recommend keeping an eye on or contributing to?I have some myself. React Testing Library is probably the biggest one that people are familiar with. And if React isn't your jam, then other framework versions of the testing library. 
React Query is also really popular. If you're using Remix, you don't need it, but if you're not, I strongly advise using React Query cause it's a stellar, fantastic library, and Tanner Linsley, the creator, is a stellar and fantastic person. 
What pieces of your work are you most proud of? Probably the biggest thing I've ever done is EpicReact.Dev. It has helped tens of thousands of people get really good at React, improve their careers and make the world a better place with the skills that they develop. My whole mission is to make the world a better place through quality software, and I feel like I've done that best with Epic React. 
There are things that I've built at other companies that are still in use, and I'm proud of those cause they've stood the test of time, at least these last few years. But of everything, I think Epic React has made the biggest impact.
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