I don't know, to me this sort of makes sense. I agree with the underlying critique I've seen elsewhere that headcount alone is often considered sufficient cause for promotion in tech — rather than what was created with that headcount. But I also see why a company might have a tough time promoting someone to "Director" who manages seven reports, regardless of their impact on the company. Ostensibly they want someone at that level to be capable of a certain amount of management that goes beyond 1:1s and into value-setting and overall strategy, so that when they want to laterally transfer they can take a director position on another project. And it's pretty hard to prove that with seven reports. The general reaction here is that Copilot made a lot of money etc, so Director is commensurately well-compensated. But probably companies should just be better about rewarding people for work within their current role rather than giving folks senior management titles and responsibilities merely for working on hit projects.
> But probably companies should just be better about rewarding people for work within their current role rather than giving folks senior management titles and responsibilities merely for working on hit projects.
100% - frequently, my only path to giving someone a significant raise is via promotion. They may not want the next title, they may not want to manage, but I’ve often been constrained in being able to offer a better IC title, or to just pay a high performing Senior more.
It was a point of emphasis for me in my last search - commitment to, and belief in, IC tracks.
Quite odd that the last time around he complained about only getting a promo out of it, and this time it is about not getting one. Are we supposed to believe that he was promised a promo skipping past levels for delivering this? Who would even had the power to credibly promise that at a company like MS? Certainly not his VP, if the first story is to be believed.
Yeah. I think I have a tough time feeling bad for him because it's sort of the bargain you have accept working for big tech... in the low chance that you build a world-changing product, you're going to benefit very minimally relative to the value you unlock. In exchange you get some degree of insulation from product failures.
Contrast that to if the guy had created a startup which made Copilot... he would have had the ability to benefit much more, but would have been exposed to more risk if it failed.
If you're dealing in expected-value terms, it's almost always the right move to just work for someone else.
Copilot is a feature which almost literally writes itself. It sounds like Alex doesn’t understand how lucky he was to be at the right place at the right time, but superiors _did_ understand that.
