

Ask HN: Promoted beyond my level of competence? - direngthrow

Throwaway.  September of last year, I had been at my (small, non-engineering focused) company for 6 months as a Lead Engineer.  My boss quit, and as the highest ranking &#x2F; most qualified, I was offered the position of Director of Engineering, with the promise that a CTO would be hired soon.  Received a 20% raise and a lot more responsibility.  I looked at it as a challenge, but probably would not have applied for the job.  Fast forward, I&#x27;ve now been in charge for 8 months (no CTO hire yet) too stressed, and not really enjoying all of the random troubleshooting, prioritizing, politics, and managing the team.  I don&#x27;t get to write code too much anymore.<p>Anyone else been in a situation? Is this an example of the Peter Principle? Is it ok that I don&#x27;t enjoy these challenges as much as I enjoy technical challenges?
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calcsam
I don't think you've been promoted beyond your level of competence, I think
you enjoy coding more than managerial troubleshooting. There are lots of
articles on engineers who prefer engineering more than managing.

Not what you're asking for, but you have a pretty strong hand to play right
now. If you went to the CEO and listed the issues that you're dealing with
that you would expect the CTO to deal with.

Then say, "These are basically executive-level functions. I'm happy to handle
them, but if you aren't planning on hiring a CTO, I'd like the title of VP
Engineering and another 20% raise."

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direngthrow
Great point. I think partially I'm extra hard on myself because I feel like
this was a blown opportunity get kick ass, take names, and become VPE. But
instead, I came to the realization that climbing the managerial ladder isn't
what I wanted.

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smartera
I am in the same position.. got recently promoted to manage a ~20 person team
(analytics not programming). It sucks not being able to do actual
analysis/project work anymore and the politics are infuriating.

That said, the experience is very valuable. I am planning to take off to start
a company soon so managerial experience is definitely handy (not to mention
the extra pay!)

My advice is to work on a technical side project to keep your soul from
getting crushed (either at work or personal) and learn from the job till you
figure out what you want to do next.

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JSeymourATL
Yes, the situation you describe is classic Peter Principle. Having the skills
to manage people, politics, & priorities requires a special (albeit learnt)
skill-set. Senior leadership obviously trusted you and more importantly, you
were Johnny-on-the-spot. It's OK, only a whack-job actually welcomes those
headaches. Now that you've 'enjoyed' the exalted Director status, ideally
where do you want to go from here? What would stretch you professionally?

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direngthrow
Great question! I've been trying to define the metric by which I measure my
success. The salary has been good, as has the ability to mentor and grow my
team. I think what I would really love is to have the confidence to build my
own thing and be the driver of the car rather than an efficient engine.

~~~
JSeymourATL
Good-- you've got a huge opportunity to leverage this platform for your next
act. Use this time to salt away cash, author your action plan, and gain
managerial experience. Think of it as grad school, 24 months up and out.

~~~
direngthrow
I'm setting this as my desktop background. Thanks!

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rnovak
Personally, I don't think so. I'm still young and probably still naive about a
lot of things, but I think the best leaders, in my own experience, have been
those who didn't want the position, who used to be engineers themselves. You
may have an insight someone with an MBA might not, and unless you're
performing poorly according to your companies guidelines, I wouldn't say
you're incompetent.

while you may have been promoted beyond your skill set, you can always develop
more skills, and as I said, you may have insights that someone else might not
see, you'll have more rapport with those you manage because you once worked
among them, and I think, since you're stressed, you might care more than
someone who was hired off the street.

Maybe you're a great leader _because_ you're stressed by important decisions
and responsibility?

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glimcat
Do you want to keep doing the job if they get the CTO so you're not
overloaded? Or do you want to get out of management?

There's nothing wrong with deciding you don't want to climb the management
ladder, but getting "un-promoted" is something where you'll probably want to
find a new job. Fortunately, almost everyone is trying to hire competent
senior developers, so you should be able to find a new gig before too long -
and probably get yet another pay raise to go with it.

~~~
jmathai
> getting "un-promoted" is something where you'll probably want to find a new
> job.

That's an interesting point. Anyone gone through this that could share their
experience with taking a promotion and then "giving it back"?

