Yea, this is where I like the amazon model of ownership. It’s something like:
SDE I - can work on clearly defined components of a project assigned to them
SDE II - can work on an ambiguous project with multiple components lead by a technical strategy
SDE III - lead influence and define strategy for ambiguous projects across multiple teams
This person is operating at an SDE II level but is being managed at an SDE I level...it’s time for a promotion. What’s worse is the manager is micromanaging the engineers. Instead the employee needs to be given more ambiguous project level work that aligns with the team/product strategy where they can define their own tasks. Also the manager should consider falling back from managing at the task level, instead helping facilitate at the project (or “story”) level. The fact that the manager is managing at a task level and is unable to find work for this engineer tells me that the team doesn’t have a strong tech lead who is familiar with the team/product strategy and can help mentor/lead other engineers.
In terms of retaining the engineer and making them less insecure about their role, when the manager gives the team member more insight into the team’s strategy and the way that the manager is evaluating their work it helps team members feel more secure in their role. A lot of the anxiety comes from guessing what your manager is thinking and how you are being evaluated and shows a lack of communication between manager and team on strategy, values and performance evaluation. The manager should consider holding weekly 1:1s focusing on these topics.
Absolutely, but this is a particular feature of product-oriented tech companies. Enterprise could maybe work like that but usually doesn't. Consultancy absolutely can't. This is why it's so important to work in Silicon Valley and not just any software development role.
At amazon the engineer track has leadership level roles:
SDE I -> SDE II -> SDE III -> Principal Engineer (SDE IV) - you provide technical advisory and strategy across an organization -> Distinguished Engineer/Sr. Principal Engineer etc. (SDE V)
Some choose to stay at SDE III level until the end of their career though since it offers the most freedom to code. You absolutely don’t get fired for this.
This track exists at Oracle and Google. I am not familiar with the others.
Can SDEIIIs have/hire supportive staff to deal with the managerial tasks the don't like?
I once basically had a part time secretary and it was fantastic. A few hours a week could even be enough, it just frees up so much mental space. It boggles my mind this is not the norm.
you get fired if you dont make it to IC3 or 4 (depending on company) eventually, and getting promoted to those levels does require leadership. sounds like bob just wants to work on bug fixes forever, there is no path to promotion there.
For that kind of person even IC1 is not a good fit instead I usually recommend they will do better as a QA Engineer, Support Engineer etc. in FAANG or software engineer at a non-tech company (gov contractor, healthcare etc.). At least at FAANG companies IC is not just coding, it’s mentoring, providing technical leadership, writing design docs, oncall, etc. This is not leadership in the sense of a people manager it’s being able to provide constructive feedback to other teammates and positively influence your team’s codebase, architecture and product. Basically being able to lead technical decisions and technical strategy.
There are different types ics. You absolute can stay as a type of programmer who concentrate on your own project with 0 people leadership. But you do need tech leadership. You are taking this kind of project because your are technically sufficient and that's your leadership.
It doesn't mean it's a solo project. It just means you have the technical direction and you can let ppl manager to handle ppl side of things and you do almost 100% tech side of work. If you have 0 tech leadership and can only work on tasks assigned to you, you are not even ic4 worthy, that's absolutely ic3 ie ng level.
Again this is more of a feature in big tech where this kind of projects are available
Uhhh no...? On the contrary in big tech u can stay ic up to even director level. Manager level ics are very common. It's the opposite of what you described
SDE I - can work on clearly defined components of a project assigned to them
SDE II - can work on an ambiguous project with multiple components lead by a technical strategy
SDE III - lead influence and define strategy for ambiguous projects across multiple teams
This person is operating at an SDE II level but is being managed at an SDE I level...it’s time for a promotion. What’s worse is the manager is micromanaging the engineers. Instead the employee needs to be given more ambiguous project level work that aligns with the team/product strategy where they can define their own tasks. Also the manager should consider falling back from managing at the task level, instead helping facilitate at the project (or “story”) level. The fact that the manager is managing at a task level and is unable to find work for this engineer tells me that the team doesn’t have a strong tech lead who is familiar with the team/product strategy and can help mentor/lead other engineers.
In terms of retaining the engineer and making them less insecure about their role, when the manager gives the team member more insight into the team’s strategy and the way that the manager is evaluating their work it helps team members feel more secure in their role. A lot of the anxiety comes from guessing what your manager is thinking and how you are being evaluated and shows a lack of communication between manager and team on strategy, values and performance evaluation. The manager should consider holding weekly 1:1s focusing on these topics.