
Ask HN: How do I “make the switch” towards becoming a director or VP - primordialsoup
I have been reasonably successful by some standards at a big tech company, but don&#x27;t quite think I could ever become a Director or a VP, given the rate at which I am progressing --- it is linear with time, which is not sufficient; I would like to aspire better. I am wondering what kind of things I need to switch about myself and about how I do things. There is the people aspect, and then there is technical aspect. Any thoughts on both of these? Are people willing to share how they overcame similar challenges and &quot;made the switch&quot;?
======
auspex
I don't think you "make the switch"

I think the best way to get promoted is to first be the employee that managers
want to copy and paste to build a team if they could. That doesn't mean
putting in hard long hours (it can include that) but it means: Be exceptional
at your job, be on top of the details, developing processes that other
employees start to copy, create content internally, being a go to resource for
other teams.

The second big thing is that you have to make it known to your boss that you
want a promotion to management.

When a promotion is available they have an incredible employee, respected by
peers and others, that has been improving the overall team that wants to be a
manager.

~~~
primordialsoup
Yes, by "making the switch" I was not referring to just suddenly become
director material. It is basically how I can change how I learn. What you have
mentioned is useful, thanks, and I am trying my best to do all of those, but
how I improve is linear at best. I see others who grow better than linear, and
would like to emulate them. Ultimately my goal is not to just strive towards a
Director, but to become a solid performer who strategizes/works like one.

~~~
nostrademons
Something I noticed about how you phrased the question: you've focused on
things you can control (the people and the tech), and not on the things you
can't (the opportunity). You can't ignore the people and the tech, but...

Folks I know who've shot up in their career usually shot up because they
capitalized on a big one-off opportunity. Their boss left and they were the
obvious replacement. A brand-new startup was getting hot and needed an
experienced leader with their credentials. They talked to the right person and
pitched a project that ended up becoming a big hit.

These individual events are random, but _hunting for them and jumping on them
is not_. Folks who shoot up usually have a background process that spends
about 20-30% of their time seeking out information from the world around them,
filtering it, and evaluating whether there could be any big opportunities
there. The folks who _really_ shoot up (Larry Page, Mark Zuckerburg, Steve
Jobs, Peter Thiel, etc.) seem to spend close to 100% of their time evaluating
opportunities, and delegate the people/tech stuff to others. Larry Page used
to say that the hardest thing about his job was to get people to focus not on
what exists, but on what _should_ exist that doesn't yet.

You may want to start developing this background process. How much are you
aware of what high-level execs in your company consider to be top priorities?
Who are the most creative product & UX people in your org, and what are they
working on? Are you keeping tabs on new startups in your field? When was the
last time you applied for a new job? Have you had a chat with an executive
recruiter any time recently?

~~~
hazz99
This observation of these events being random but the search/alertness to them
occurring as _not_ random is quite insightful, and beats repeating.

------
claudiulodro
My anecdotal observations about people I know and LinkedIn profiles I've seen
are that the best way to do this is to stick around at one company for like 10
years and continue picking up increasingly more responsibility. Eventually
you're a team lead and then eventually you're whatever the position above team
lead is at the company.

C-suite is almost always an outside-hire, though.

------
phibz
Don't wait for someone to label you a leader.

Learn and understand the behaviors of effective leaders and implement them in
your own work and relationships. So many people operate within the
expectations, or what they precieve as the limitations, of their position.
Stepping up and leading is about taking personal responsibility for making
those decisions yourself rather than being told what to do.

No one is going to tell you to lead or if they do you aren't really one. Much
of this comes from within. Having said that, a good mentor is valuable.

Lastly and most importantly, work on communication and social skills.
Communication is how you operate as a leader.

------
jiveturkey
Very unclear from your question, do you mean make the switch from IC, or
technical track? Or do you mean from first line management? I think the former
because that latter isn't "switching" into management, it's more of a
promotion.

I'll answer the former question because you're posting on HN, so that's
probably your meaning.

Tip #1: it isn't by merit.

Tip #2. your people skills are the most important thing. the only important
thing. even in a technical director+ role. work on that.

Tip #3. get a role, somewhere, that will hone your people skills. most
importantly, interacting with people that are not like yourself. run for city
council. do some kind of organizing in the neighborhood. i was going to say
church but those would be people like you, if you are so affiliated. join the
national guard for weekend duty. remember, you don't just want some
improvement here, you want rapid improvement. that calls for really applying
yourself. i mean you could even start small -- get a job as an apple genius or
at best buy. but be sure to graduate from that quickly.

Tip #4. talk to the managers around you. every day.

ok, now you've done all that. switch jobs to a smaller company. commit to this
for 3 years. do not stay longer. after that, you must job hop every 2-3 years
to get fast promotions. you have to be careful that your job hopping are more
responsibility each time, otherwise it's a bad look. be _absolutely focused_
on getting to your next job, on day 1 of your new job. that means solving as
many impactful problems as you can, starting in week 1 of a new job.

i hate to say it, but make sure you collect linked-in "friends" at a
prodigious rate.

------
nostrademons
A bunch of people I've worked with have done this - my old boss's boss made it
to SVP of Search at Google, another boss's boss (inserted into the management
chain below the former, actually) is now CPO of Slack, one of the other
manager's I worked with is now CTO at DropBox, former coworkers are heads of
product at Asana and IPFS, my current manager is up for director, and a
college classmate has been a highly successful C-level exec that took a
company from series-B to IPO.

Some common threads I've noticed:

1\. Don't piss people off. Figure out what people's hot buttons are and avoid
them. The exec team at Google circa 2007-2013 was notoriously combative. Who
got the CEO job? Sundar, who was a very quiet, unassuming executive who
presided over a string of low-profile successes and had a knack for
translating Larry's visions into terms that the rest of the exec team could
agree with.

2\. Be consistent. Successfully delivering base hits, one after another, is
often better than striking a home run and flubbing your next project.

3\. ...but go after the high priority projects, and realize that priorities
change. People who stick to their areas of expertise usually end up getting
pigeonholed as ICs or first-level managers. People who rise through the
hierarchy usually need to reinvent themselves every 1-2 years.

4\. Take people with you. Folks that rise through the hierarchy usually have a
core group of high performers around them that they're loyal to and who are
loyal to them. Oftentimes these people are folks who don't want to bother with
#3 but are very good at what they do, and then their manager provides them
cover from the rest of the org so they can keep doing that.

5\. Be open to opportunities outside your current employer. Of the folks I
listed before, only 2 of them have risen exclusively within Google (and one of
those was a high-performer at Sun before then). Everybody else needed to
switch jobs. I was talking to the CTO of one of the companies I was applying
to recently, and he said that he interviewed at 20 companies and this was the
only one that wanted him. Your job search gets a lot less liquid the higher
you get - if you're looking for a CxO job, you need to go to the company that
is looking for a CxO with your particular skillset, and that may require
moving to a different geographic area or considering companies that you
wouldn't otherwise want to work for.

Also make sure you really want to do this. All the people I know that have
rocketed up to executive levels basically live for their work. A lot of them
never bothered to have a family, or if they did have a family, they
downshifted their career for a while and only started accelerating again once
their kids were in school. Several founder/CEOs I know have broken families -
either they're divorced, or they hate their spouse and are just roommates who
stay together for the kids. Most of them have friends, but they don't have the
type of tight, regular dependable friendships that my friends who are in dead-
end jobs have. It's probably that reason why this isn't really a path I'm
going for - I had a choice between being a decent father or a decent founder,
and chose the former.

------
j_walter
People who become managers, directors and eventually VPs usually have one
thing in common. They know how to get people to become better people. It's not
about being the best at the specific job that they did before getting
promoted...it's about how they encourage others to do their best.

Another possibility is moving to a startup...in a medium term businesses
(think 10-20 years) the upper echelon is filled with people that were part of
the start up phase.

------
tixocloud
It depends on the industry you’re in but in most cases, it’s also heavily
dependent on building relationships across the organization and understanding
the impact of decisions being made. Engineering is just a slice of the company
and leaders that can link the technical to the business and align on company
goals will inevitably be seen as more valuable partner.

------
shoo
One amusing but insightful suggestion I read recently is: use the opportunity
of your boss becoming sick and taking extended leave to gain experience
operating at the next level up while acting in your boss' role.

(This popped up in a discussion relating to the influence that luck has on
people's success.)

------
Jemaclus
First of all, let me put this out there: you don't want to be a manager. It's
not fun and games. It's not a powerfest. It's a slog. It means more meetings,
it means dealing with people's personalities and personal problems, it means
less code, it means less clarity, it means more politics. It means constantly
trying to compromise between business goals, tech goals, and personal goals.
It means becoming responsible not just for the technical product, but the
people, and not just their professional lives, but their personal happiness
and health. You can't manage burnt out people.

It's a horrible job. You don't want it, and I don't recommend it. I am 1000%
serious here. You should ask yourself why you want to be a Director or VP. Is
it money? Is it power? Is it respect? Often you can get those things as a
regular engineer and not have to deal with politics and people crap. You don't
want to be a manager. Seriously.

Still here? Ok, then. With that in mind...

The first thing is I strongly believe that you don't get anything you don't
ask for. If your boss is anything like me and my peers and my boss and my
boss's boss and anyone else I've ever worked for, they'll take your silence as
contentedness. They'll assume that because you aren't the squeaky wheel,
you're doing fine.

There isn't a magic lightbulb that's going to appear and they'll say "gee,
PrimordialSoup would be a fantastic Director. I'll just take them out of their
current role and give them lots of responsibility!" It's actually the other
way around! They'll say "PrimodialSoup is a solid engineer, and I'd like to
keep them there as long as they want to be."

In other words, you have to ask for it. And I don't mean like "Can I be a
director now, pretty please?"

I mean go to your boss at your next 1:1, and you say "Hey, I've been thinking
about my career. Let's say in 3 years I want your job. How do I get there?"
And then work with your boss to identify opportunities for growth and
experience over the next several months/years.

If your boss isn't interested in helping you grow professionally, then you
need to find a new boss, IMO.

The second piece of advice I have is to take on all the responsibility you can
handle. If a problem comes up, volunteer to fix it. If someone's struggling,
volunteer to help. Mentor as much as you can. Be visible and be vocal. That
doesn't mean be a jerk and shove your opinions down peoples' throats, but the
more that people can see you as a subject matter expert in your area and the
more they can see you acting decisively, the more people will start to think
of you as a leader. And part of being visible is being _everywhere_ as much as
you can.

Keep in mind that you generally aren't promoted _into_ a role. Usually you are
_doing_ the job and the promotion is simply a recognition of the _job you're
already doing_.

If you don't have direct reports now, it's a little trickier. But you and your
boss should be able to identify opportunities for you to stand out as a
leader, to gain respect from other peers, and then after you've been leading a
project for a long enough period of time, they can make it official, and the
people that were unofficially working for you are now officially your direct
reports.

But taking on additional responsibility means _nothing_ if your ambitions
aren't clear to your manager. They need the context to be able to say,
"PrimordialSoup just took on an extra project. They're really going the
distance to prove that they can handle additional responsibility." If they
don't know you want a promotion, then they'll just chalk it up to you being a
go-getter.

So back to point #1: you need to be explicit with your boss. "I'm interested
in career growth. What can we do to get me to the next level?" is a great way
to start the conversation. Be clear about your expectations and timelines.
Don't be unrealistic. Your manager can't promote you overnight. But they can
grease the wheels and get the ball rolling, and if they're any good
themselves, they'll be able to guide you and mentor you to your next steps.

And again, if they can't or won't do that, then your best bet is to find
another mentor, and that usually means finding another job.

Good luck!

------
ilyas121
Is it common for those positions to be promoted from within or hired from
other companies?

------
demygale
I’m happiest as an individual contributor so this is not from personal
experience, just observation.

Start doing the job you want to be in. Solve the problems that the director or
VP are solving. And find a mentor.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
PlatoHQ is great for finding mentors.

------
sjg007
Directors lead groups of people, VPs lead groups of directors etc... You need
to find ways to lead others hopefully in a high visibility project. At any
rate, lead some project and deliver.

------
wolco
Get an MBA become a product owner / have success that pushes the company to
another level would help.

------
ta738383
"reasonable successful" isn't going to get you promoted to VP. I'm a VP, and
know many in my role. Seek out and take OWNERSHIP of the hardest most
important projects for your company, completely NAIL the delivery of said
projects, and you'll get promoted.

Once there, you'll wish you were an engineer again...

------
one2know
Companies do not willing hire managers, especially executive level. There is
always a reason. For instance, they were hired from a competitor and had
information, could bring over employees, etc. Other times it is personal
relationships. Notice I say relationship not friendship. Many companies are
doing unethical or illegal things and are not going to hire someone they think
is a boy scout narc into their ranks. Many are doing criminal businesses on
the side. You think I am joking or exaggerating, but this is sadly the
reality. It's nice to pretend stuff doesn't go on but it does. The good thing
is that you can start your own business, be the boss, and run an ethical ship.

