Three career paths in IT: founder, leader or employee
When people ask me for a career in IT, I find it useful to outline three paths I have encountered in my career: the founder, the manager, and the employee. I leave behind the investor, because it is better to deal with this after a successful (or unsuccessful) attempt to follow one of the three ways listed above.
Below I will outline the advantages / disadvantages and useful strategies for each role.
I wrote this article because, surprisingly, I often come across people who, when discussing a career, think only about one way, ignoring other options. When others give them advice, it is often recommended to follow this path further (as a partner of Y Combinator and a former founder, I am also very guilty of this).
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I do not give any value judgments to each of these paths. For ten years in Silicon Valley, I have seen friends who lead a successful and fulfilling life, being in any of the three roles.
Your initial goal is to collect all the necessary components to become a founder.
Many people who want to become founders overlook one or more of the listed components. A common mistake is to try to find the missing component with a hitch instead of solving a deep problem. If your team does not have enough technical skills to create MVP, you do not need to order from third-party studios and developers. Make friends among those who have the necessary skills. Convince them to join you.
Often there are serious obstacles that prevent a person from starting a business. In these cases, my best advice is to move closer to the IT hub (preferably next to Silicon Valley) and work for an IT company until you make enough money. Make friends with suitable potential colleagues and find a problem that you really really want to solve. Typically, creating a large and influential company takes ten years. So it is quite normal to delay a little the launch point in order to increase the chances of success.
Please note that among the necessary components there is no experience. The fact is that experience is overestimated. It has some meaning, but it is very much overestimated by those who are thinking about creating a company. In almost all cases, it doesn't matter what knowledge you have. After starting the company, you will learn almost everything you need, about the problem, your users and the best solution to the problem.
In reality, I see two strategies along the way.
The first strategy is to choose a fast-growing company. If you manage to choose such a company at an early stage of its development, you will get more responsibility as it grows - I assume as a matter of course that you are a friendly and productive team player. For example, if you were one of the first hundred employees of Facebook and stayed there for ten years, then you would have many opportunities to become a leader. The problem here is that it is extremely difficult to identify a company that will grow rapidly for a long time (in many ways this task is similar to the task of a venture investor).
Another option is to go to work in a recognized company. I have seen people who successfully go this way - and they do not get hung up on work in a single company, and often think about a diagonal movement in positions between widely recognized brands, until they finally take the leading position. For example, after college, you start at Google, accept the invitation from Dropbox for the position of the team leader, go to Yahoo for the position of manager, go back to Google - and so on.
People on their way to a management position should either think like venture capital investors and choose a company that will be successful over the next ten years, or continuously look around to find the best and best opportunities inside and outside their current company.
The strategy for choosing a place of work is similar to the strategy of someone who follows the path of a manager. You need to either calculate and join a fast-growing firm, or find a way to get a job in a well-known successful company. It is much easier to change jobs among well-known companies, if you initially started with this. Also, in my experience, it is especially convenient to optimize such a career option specifically for programmers.
I would also like to say finally that it takes time to achieve mastery in each of the three roles. The idea that from 20 to 30 years old you need to look for yourself and the job that gives you the most pleasure is common among the guys in college. The problem is that if you need 5-10 years to achieve mastery, and you spent 10 years searching for yourself ... then it will take a very long time before you achieve success in at least something (and get the appropriate reward for it). This does not mean that you do not need to explore different options, but you need to understand the price of these studies and plan them accordingly.
Below I will outline the advantages / disadvantages and useful strategies for each role.
I wrote this article because, surprisingly, I often come across people who, when discussing a career, think only about one way, ignoring other options. When others give them advice, it is often recommended to follow this path further (as a partner of Y Combinator and a former founder, I am also very guilty of this).
')
I do not give any value judgments to each of these paths. For ten years in Silicon Valley, I have seen friends who lead a successful and fulfilling life, being in any of the three roles.
Founder
Benefits
- Engaging in love, to which the soul really lies
- Creating something new in this world
- A high level of responsibility often inspires extreme productivity.
- The choice of people with whom you want to work
- Mastering new skills with exceptional speed
disadvantages
- Incredibly high levels of stress. Even success will be painful
- Probably will not provide you with a maximum level of income.
- Significant barriers to start (finance / skills / location)
- Large-scale success often requires a decade or more of dedication.
- The level of commitment significantly interferes with personal life.
Strategies for those who want to be a founder
Your initial goal is to collect all the necessary components to become a founder.
- Identify potential colleagues you can work with and have the necessary technical skills to help you create a minimally viable product (MVP).
- Outline a financial plan. For example, do you have enough personal savings, are there friends / relatives who can provide sowing investments, is there enough money to start up, can you reduce costs and save money to ensure 6-12 months of work on your idea?
- Identify the problem that you and potential colleagues passionately want to solve.
- The least important (but still necessary) part is the plan how to solve the problem.
Many people who want to become founders overlook one or more of the listed components. A common mistake is to try to find the missing component with a hitch instead of solving a deep problem. If your team does not have enough technical skills to create MVP, you do not need to order from third-party studios and developers. Make friends among those who have the necessary skills. Convince them to join you.
Often there are serious obstacles that prevent a person from starting a business. In these cases, my best advice is to move closer to the IT hub (preferably next to Silicon Valley) and work for an IT company until you make enough money. Make friends with suitable potential colleagues and find a problem that you really really want to solve. Typically, creating a large and influential company takes ten years. So it is quite normal to delay a little the launch point in order to increase the chances of success.
Please note that among the necessary components there is no experience. The fact is that experience is overestimated. It has some meaning, but it is very much overestimated by those who are thinking about creating a company. In almost all cases, it doesn't matter what knowledge you have. After starting the company, you will learn almost everything you need, about the problem, your users and the best solution to the problem.
Leader (top manager in a large company)
Benefits
- Stable income / benefits / other.
- High prestige (only the most successful founders are more respected)
- Higher probability of influence on the industry (since most startups fail)
- No team building and saving money is required to start.
disadvantages
- Good work and results do not guarantee promotion on the corporate ladder. Domestic policy may be just as important or even more important.
- Success can prevent other employees of the company.
- You need to have a talent for choosing companies that will grow successfully over time.
- It takes a long time to achieve a significant level of responsibility.
Strategies for those who want to be a leader
In reality, I see two strategies along the way.
The first strategy is to choose a fast-growing company. If you manage to choose such a company at an early stage of its development, you will get more responsibility as it grows - I assume as a matter of course that you are a friendly and productive team player. For example, if you were one of the first hundred employees of Facebook and stayed there for ten years, then you would have many opportunities to become a leader. The problem here is that it is extremely difficult to identify a company that will grow rapidly for a long time (in many ways this task is similar to the task of a venture investor).
Another option is to go to work in a recognized company. I have seen people who successfully go this way - and they do not get hung up on work in a single company, and often think about a diagonal movement in positions between widely recognized brands, until they finally take the leading position. For example, after college, you start at Google, accept the invitation from Dropbox for the position of the team leader, go to Yahoo for the position of manager, go back to Google - and so on.
People on their way to a management position should either think like venture capital investors and choose a company that will be successful over the next ten years, or continuously look around to find the best and best opportunities inside and outside their current company.
Employee (individual member / middle manager)
Benefits
- Stable income / benefits / other.
- More work and less meetings
- More direct influence on users through their work.
- Thanks to popular skills, flexibility arises where and how much you will work.
- Often more time with friends and family
disadvantages
- Productivity can be hindered by poor management.
- Often there is no opportunity to choose what to work on.
- Often there is no opportunity to influence important decisions - even if you “know how best”
- Hard to get rich
- Can be boring
- If you do not have rare skills or productivity drops, it’s easier to fire you.
Strategies for those who want to be hired
The strategy for choosing a place of work is similar to the strategy of someone who follows the path of a manager. You need to either calculate and join a fast-growing firm, or find a way to get a job in a well-known successful company. It is much easier to change jobs among well-known companies, if you initially started with this. Also, in my experience, it is especially convenient to optimize such a career option specifically for programmers.
I would also like to say finally that it takes time to achieve mastery in each of the three roles. The idea that from 20 to 30 years old you need to look for yourself and the job that gives you the most pleasure is common among the guys in college. The problem is that if you need 5-10 years to achieve mastery, and you spent 10 years searching for yourself ... then it will take a very long time before you achieve success in at least something (and get the appropriate reward for it). This does not mean that you do not need to explore different options, but you need to understand the price of these studies and plan them accordingly.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/339118/
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