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Seems to be career suicide. You are turning down countless promotion opportunities and insane amounts of compensation. All so what, you can continue coding day

Seems to be career suicide. You are turning down countless promotion opportunities and insane amounts of compensation. All so what, you can continue coding day to day? Seems absurd, code at home as your hobby if it means that much to you. As an individual contributor your value to any company is limited no matter your skill. At a certain point the company is going to ask, is your compensation worth the value you add? Its not a surprise that the answer to that question is often no.

svachalek 8y ago
It depends. At a lot of companies, manager and senior software engineer are roughly equivalent in compensation. To make "insane" amounts of compensation you've got to make director or better, and that's a completely different job/life than engineering. A lot of people went into engineering because they don't have that in 'em.
geebee 8y ago
That's a fine thesis, though I do think that software is one of those areas where a maker can under some circumstances, potentially have a vastly more powerful impact on an organization than a manager. Opportunities are fewer and the competition level is high, though. To really harness this, you probably have to either become a founder who writes an early version of a product (very difficult), or alternatively advance along one of the technical track ladders that exist in some big tech companies (they exist, but far fewer opportunities and intense competition). There's a chance you could pitch a breakthrough product, but many (not all!) organizations seem strangely hostile to this. So I do agree with you that going into management does offer greater opportunity for promotion and increased compensation. I disagree your value as an individual contributor is necessarily limited though, since a technically talented developer with a strong business sense can produce unreal value, sky is the limit on that combination.
- nunya213 8y ago
  Well naturally everyone on Hacker News assumes they are a 10x dev, are gods gift to programming and will be the next Jeff Dean but that's simply not reality.

svachalek 8y ago

It depends. At a lot of companies, manager and senior software engineer are roughly equivalent in compensation. To make "insane" amounts of compensation you've got to make director or better, and that's a completely different job/life than engineering. A lot of people went into engineering because they don't have that in 'em.

geebee 8y ago

That's a fine thesis, though I do think that software is one of those areas where a maker can under some circumstances, potentially have a vastly more powerful impact on an organization than a manager. Opportunities are fewer and the competition level is high, though. To really harness this, you probably have to either become a founder who writes an early version of a product (very difficult), or alternatively advance along one of the technical track ladders that exist in some big tech companies (they exist, but far fewer opportunities and intense competition). There's a chance you could pitch a breakthrough product, but many (not all!) organizations seem strangely hostile to this. So I do agree with you that going into management does offer greater opportunity for promotion and increased compensation. I disagree your value as an individual contributor is necessarily limited though, since a technically talented developer with a strong business sense can produce unreal value, sky is the limit on that combination.

nunya213 8y ago
Well naturally everyone on Hacker News assumes they are a 10x dev, are gods gift to programming and will be the next Jeff Dean but that's simply not reality.