"Friday format": where to grow technical specialists
We in 1cloud constantly analyze the experience of experts in the field of IT. For example, recently we talked about what will make the work of a novice programmer more efficient, and even discussed the topic of holiday bonuses.
Today we decided to touch on the topic of career. One of the generally accepted options for moving a programmer up the career ladder is to become a team lead and then a manager.
But not everyone is ready to manage people. And if the team leader has more practical responsibilities, then the work of a manager may be very weakly related to programming.
What to do if you want vertical growth, or if your boss thinks so? We will try to understand the article.
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/ Flickr / m1try / CC-BY
Experts say that the reluctance to become a manager can be a temporary phenomenon: in 20 years, the programmer is still full of enthusiasm and enjoys work, but after 40 years may want to change the type of activity. This, of course, does not always happen, but you should never blame.
According to Glassdoor, the standard path for programmers looks like this: junior developer -> senior developer -> lead developer or architect -> development manager, product manager and project manager -> and finally, vice president, technical or general director .
If you know that management is definitely not yours, then, according to this scheme, the ceiling of development is to be an architect. Of course, no one has canceled horizontal growth, advanced training in a particular area, and regular salary increases in the current position, we have already written about how much a programmer can receive . But now we are talking about growth up.
Horizontal programmers are quite comfortable with many programmers, but here lies the difficulty: HRs or managers due to certain reasons (lack of understanding of the specifics of work or the inability to raise the salary of a particular specialist in a current position) believe that moving up is a blessing. And not always ask the employee if he wants such growth.
For the employee, this is a definite dilemma: to abandon the promotion and spoil the relationship or to agree. It is good if the relationship with the boss allows you to talk frankly and explain the reluctance of such growth: more paper work, responsibilities and responsibility for the work of others, the need to hire and fire employees and lack of time to remain a good technical specialist.
But in any case, you shouldn’t just say no , it’s necessary to explain that the current work is a pleasure, or you don’t see yourself as a manager. And a prerequisite - to offer someone instead of yourself. If the employee knows that he has leadership skills, then you can ask for another promotion - to become the older version of his position.
Ann Latham, president of Uncommon Clarity research firm, offers to ask yourself 10 questions before you refuse to raise or accept the offer. And information for consideration - leaders who did not want to increase , are leaving twice as often as those who initially had the goal of growing to senior positions.
Once the proposal to raise came, the authorities could notice the makings of a manager, which manifested themselves in the current place of work. For example, responsibility, authority among other team members or building the right relationship with managers. We have already written that the more noticeable the employee is, the greater his chances of getting a promotion.
Rick Hutley, a former vice president of innovation development at Cisco Systems, says that an employee who decides to become a manager needs to make sure how thick he can be and how he treats risk and criticism not only to his side. After all, he will have to criticize his subordinates and make unpleasant decisions, so the circle of friends may noticeably narrow.
But there may be a reverse situation. Jennifer Selby Long, coach for career growth in Silicon Valley, notes that everyone knows that developers want to remain developers and there are almost no promotions for a manager in large IT companies. Therefore, if a person feels such a need, then he must ask for it himself.
This opportunity should be discussed with the manager or boss and enlist their support. Experts believe that in the case of an increase, it is not necessary to receive a specialized education, it is better to immediately learn by experience, for example, to take an example from a manager whose management style is pleasant to the most newly minted manager.
And, of course, you should always remember what kind of manager you wanted to work with when you were in the place of your subordinates, and strive for this ideal. As an option, you can only send a team in the right direction, and not to control every step of each employee.
We talked about whether the CEO of a technical company should have programming skills. But from an economic point of view, writing the CEO code is not profitable and not justified - the director's time is much more expensive, and his responsibilities include more important things for the company's development, therefore, the task of writing the code will have to be delegated over time to the founder of the IT startup.
It is necessary to learn to think more widely and to perceive projects from a more global and business-oriented point of view. There is no single recipe for becoming a successful manager. It is necessary to show the results of work, to strive to improve working processes, and most importantly - to earn the respect of colleagues. To do this, you can become a mentor, for example, for younger developers: in the early stages of a management career, this will help not to forget practical skills.
Someone still decides to try himself as a manager. After all, it seems that you can always return if you understand that managing a large team is not your calling.
However, there is a difficulty here - a return to previous work is not always possible. Some programmers are sure : the probability that a first-class technical specialist will become the same first-class manager is very small. A mediocre manager is unlikely to shine great career prospects in the future. After 2-3 years, when the salary of the middle manager ceases to arrange, practical programming skills may be lost, and as a result it will be possible to remain at the bottom of the trough.
Another option is to combine. There is no way out, then you can cut out some time to work with the code, which nobody in the team is engaged in yet. Explain your subordinates that you need to spend some time in a quiet and peaceful work, where there is only you and the computer, quite real. Yes, and they work with the manager, satisfied with the work will be much more pleasant.
Another possibility to avoid the need to perform the functions of a manager is to go to free swimming. Freelance and contract work provide an excellent opportunity to develop your skills, grow professionally, and get more money from each new project without the need to solicit paychecks from the head.
But there are some obvious disadvantages : long-term customer base, lack of stability, frequent changes of projects, colleagues and clients with whom you have to rebuild relationships, as well as irregular income and the need to take care of deductions for retirement or money for the sick time. Yes, and no bonuses that companies can offer, with such work either.
PS And in our last posts we collected a digest and told news on the topic of cloud technologies:
Today we decided to touch on the topic of career. One of the generally accepted options for moving a programmer up the career ladder is to become a team lead and then a manager.
But not everyone is ready to manage people. And if the team leader has more practical responsibilities, then the work of a manager may be very weakly related to programming.
What to do if you want vertical growth, or if your boss thinks so? We will try to understand the article.
')
/ Flickr / m1try / CC-BYExperts say that the reluctance to become a manager can be a temporary phenomenon: in 20 years, the programmer is still full of enthusiasm and enjoys work, but after 40 years may want to change the type of activity. This, of course, does not always happen, but you should never blame.
According to Glassdoor, the standard path for programmers looks like this: junior developer -> senior developer -> lead developer or architect -> development manager, product manager and project manager -> and finally, vice president, technical or general director .
If you know that management is definitely not yours, then, according to this scheme, the ceiling of development is to be an architect. Of course, no one has canceled horizontal growth, advanced training in a particular area, and regular salary increases in the current position, we have already written about how much a programmer can receive . But now we are talking about growth up.
To be or not to be
Horizontal programmers are quite comfortable with many programmers, but here lies the difficulty: HRs or managers due to certain reasons (lack of understanding of the specifics of work or the inability to raise the salary of a particular specialist in a current position) believe that moving up is a blessing. And not always ask the employee if he wants such growth.
For the employee, this is a definite dilemma: to abandon the promotion and spoil the relationship or to agree. It is good if the relationship with the boss allows you to talk frankly and explain the reluctance of such growth: more paper work, responsibilities and responsibility for the work of others, the need to hire and fire employees and lack of time to remain a good technical specialist.
But in any case, you shouldn’t just say no , it’s necessary to explain that the current work is a pleasure, or you don’t see yourself as a manager. And a prerequisite - to offer someone instead of yourself. If the employee knows that he has leadership skills, then you can ask for another promotion - to become the older version of his position.
Ann Latham, president of Uncommon Clarity research firm, offers to ask yourself 10 questions before you refuse to raise or accept the offer. And information for consideration - leaders who did not want to increase , are leaving twice as often as those who initially had the goal of growing to senior positions.
Manager to be
Once the proposal to raise came, the authorities could notice the makings of a manager, which manifested themselves in the current place of work. For example, responsibility, authority among other team members or building the right relationship with managers. We have already written that the more noticeable the employee is, the greater his chances of getting a promotion.
Rick Hutley, a former vice president of innovation development at Cisco Systems, says that an employee who decides to become a manager needs to make sure how thick he can be and how he treats risk and criticism not only to his side. After all, he will have to criticize his subordinates and make unpleasant decisions, so the circle of friends may noticeably narrow.
But there may be a reverse situation. Jennifer Selby Long, coach for career growth in Silicon Valley, notes that everyone knows that developers want to remain developers and there are almost no promotions for a manager in large IT companies. Therefore, if a person feels such a need, then he must ask for it himself.
This opportunity should be discussed with the manager or boss and enlist their support. Experts believe that in the case of an increase, it is not necessary to receive a specialized education, it is better to immediately learn by experience, for example, to take an example from a manager whose management style is pleasant to the most newly minted manager.
And, of course, you should always remember what kind of manager you wanted to work with when you were in the place of your subordinates, and strive for this ideal. As an option, you can only send a team in the right direction, and not to control every step of each employee.
We talked about whether the CEO of a technical company should have programming skills. But from an economic point of view, writing the CEO code is not profitable and not justified - the director's time is much more expensive, and his responsibilities include more important things for the company's development, therefore, the task of writing the code will have to be delegated over time to the founder of the IT startup.
It is necessary to learn to think more widely and to perceive projects from a more global and business-oriented point of view. There is no single recipe for becoming a successful manager. It is necessary to show the results of work, to strive to improve working processes, and most importantly - to earn the respect of colleagues. To do this, you can become a mentor, for example, for younger developers: in the early stages of a management career, this will help not to forget practical skills.
Alternatives
Someone still decides to try himself as a manager. After all, it seems that you can always return if you understand that managing a large team is not your calling.
However, there is a difficulty here - a return to previous work is not always possible. Some programmers are sure : the probability that a first-class technical specialist will become the same first-class manager is very small. A mediocre manager is unlikely to shine great career prospects in the future. After 2-3 years, when the salary of the middle manager ceases to arrange, practical programming skills may be lost, and as a result it will be possible to remain at the bottom of the trough.
Another option is to combine. There is no way out, then you can cut out some time to work with the code, which nobody in the team is engaged in yet. Explain your subordinates that you need to spend some time in a quiet and peaceful work, where there is only you and the computer, quite real. Yes, and they work with the manager, satisfied with the work will be much more pleasant.
Another possibility to avoid the need to perform the functions of a manager is to go to free swimming. Freelance and contract work provide an excellent opportunity to develop your skills, grow professionally, and get more money from each new project without the need to solicit paychecks from the head.
But there are some obvious disadvantages : long-term customer base, lack of stability, frequent changes of projects, colleagues and clients with whom you have to rebuild relationships, as well as irregular income and the need to take care of deductions for retirement or money for the sick time. Yes, and no bonuses that companies can offer, with such work either.
PS And in our last posts we collected a digest and told news on the topic of cloud technologies:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/320026/
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