alt Hacker NewsThere’s too much emphasis on career growth into leadership. I know so many programmers who simply want to solve the trickiest of technical problems, do good work they can feel proud of, and go home to their families. They want stability more than anything.
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Google’s terminal level is one past new grad and it has a full parallel non-management IC track, I don’t think that they’re pushing people that hard into leadership roles.
That's precisely why programmers become programmers. It baffles me that tech careers put most on a leadership track when people study CS for many years for a reason. Why would I want to throw those technical skills away.
You mean if everyone works really hard, we can't all be CEOs? :(
And then what happens when you are looking for your next job and you get a behavioral interview question and all you can say is “I pulled Jira tickets off the board for a decade”?
There are rare software companies where this is exactly what programmers do. The pay is lower than at FAANG & SV/LA/NYC startups, but work-life balance is great, stability is great, and most of all they get to just focus on doing great work. It's not about making quarterly goals, it's about stewarding (or perhaps gardening) a software project for many years. Engineers grow a lot from all the deep, focused feature work and problem solving.
I worked at such a place for 15 years. The downsides for me were lower pay, no equity, and not getting broad industry experience. I ended up leaving, and I now make a lot more money, but I do miss it.