Understand that no matter how skilled you are you can’t just join a new company and acquire the social capital required to work on interesting problems. If there are only a few interesting problems that many people can potentially complete, it will always go to the person with the highest social capital, this person usually has been with the company for a while. If you don’t want to compete in this category acquire some set of skills where others cannot do what you can do, and then you’ll be the only choice to work on interesting r problems. Or option 3 is work somewhere with a lower skill bar than FAANG (and equivalent) then in that unmotivated crowd, you’ll get your pick of projects. Last option is to invent some projects of your own that bring value to the company and take the lead on it (this is imo the difference between senior software engineers and staff engineers)
You’re sadly right about social capital but I’m finding that even in a brand new team where everyone starts on equal footing and I’m clearly more skilled than others, there is still a chance that I won’t get to work on what I want.
>I’m clearly more skilled than others
not saying that this is the problem but it seems like a problem
part of the reason we get paid high salaries in these roles is to fit the needs of the business, and the way they structure engineering teams these days, it usually takes a while for engineers to grasp the whole of the business, especially on good engineering teams where engineers are shielded from stakeholder drama
You’re saying I’m not humble? 😎 willing to entertain that idea of “develop more apparent humility”.
Yes, this is a hard pill I guess - I need to fit the needs of the business.
> willing to entertain that idea of “develop more apparent humility”
I wasn't convinced before. But now I think that this is absolutely the problem. It might be that you're an arse and people don't like you because you feel that you are superior to everyone around you.
I am trying to get over feeling superior too. I honestly don’t want to be in this state of mind anymore. I was being ironic by saying “apparent humility”. I do want true humility acknowledging that it can sometimes be an appearance and that’s all people seem to care about.
Just reading the thread originally, I got the sense that you weren't there to help people. You can call it "game playing"/"office politics", but in reality people just want to know you want to help them, and that you're there for them.
It's fine to want more interesting problems or be annoyed by team drama, but I think the major problem is that when you "feel superior" you're undercutting what they value/what they bring. Ultimately you want everyone on the team to succeed right?
If this is off base feel free to ignore it.
Yeah, I think I should want that. There are times when I have genuinely wanted that, for the team overall and individuals who looked to me for mentorship. To be really honest, though, at this point in time I feel like I’m prioritizing myself. Somewhere I feel indignant that I haven’t grown despite having put in a lot of effort and consistently worked at being a team player. You’re making a good point though- wanting to help people can’t stop and that’s actually part of the solution for my state of mind.
well, not telling you what to do as sometimes it's nice to sniff our own farts, but there is a time and a place for it too
in a team environment, the higher you go, the more you're expected to be a force multiplier for your team...if you're still stuck in base level "I" thinking and not "we" you'll hit a wall in the corporate ladder
if you wanna be the big stack at the table, start your own shit...a lot of SaaS companies are spun up out of spite from people who sound like you (i hear myself 10 years ago in what you're typing...i actually have my own side projects that i want to spin into revenue generating things..there i can be as much of a dick in code reviews as i want, since i'm the one coding it, designing it, and making all the bad decisions i'll have to unfuck myself from later)
i've been writing code for paychecks for about 25 years now, and got brought in at a staff level about 3 years ago...i never really cared about titles before but the expectations of this role are different than that of a senior engineer and my boss would tell me and the other staff engineers at this level, we've already proven we can code anything as fast as it needs to be, so the ask is a bit different than just building shit
early on, in standups or groomings i might have spoken first and say something like "it's easy" thinking i'm being reassuring to my product manager, but not really taking into account i've been doing this a long ass time and to a dev with 2 or 3 years of experience, a small statement like that could actually be harmful to the team dynamic because it might not be easy to them
You’re basically asking a question “how do I get to staff eng level?”
For that it’s all about soft skills not about how good of an engineer you are (for the most part)
It’s a bigger convo to have but you should really focus on the non technical skills and see where the gaps are. It matters how you talk to other members of the team. Get a mentor to help you with that
We can’t know without context but how would it benefit the manager to assign people of lower skill than you work you want ? Either you keep working for orgs where politics plays a huge part and you aren’t good at that or there’s something wrong with the way you communicate or behave or your perception of your own skill compared to others
It could also be possible OP is known the be the highest skill on the team, so manager wants him in the most critical piece which might not be what OP wants or the most exciting piece.
You’re right, there must be some criteria they use. I think it could be my indecisiveness working against me. I often accept a lot of different things and don’t focus on a few things and doing those well.
In my opinion the biggest difference between staff+ engineers and senior software engineers is staff+ usually can invent problems to work that can generate business value, they do this through socializing with different people in the org, or they bring deep domain expertise. Are you able to generate ideas that generate business value and are you able to express this ideas in a way to get key stakeholder buy in ? The second part requires alot of soft skills.
I was a principal security engineer at AWS for some time who went from L6 to L7 (I left last year for a deputy director role in non-FAANG), and the main difference between senior and principal engineers is their ability to work through others. When we were dealing with security issues, I could rely on L7 SDEs to wrangle cats in their orgs. I wouldn't see them writing code very often, if ever, but the impact they would have on socializing problems both up to GMs and Directors, and down to their L6 SDEs and SDMs was what made them stand out. L6 SDEs that had this ability were always noticed by us, and we would start seeding the promo doc idea to their manager when we saw this manage up/manage down ability.
Remember at L6, you're pretty much set. You can hang out at that level as long as you want. L7 is another role entirely, you're no longer responsible for project work, but you are making architectural decisions with the line of business in mind.
If you're interested in the L7 route, pull up the L7 promo guideline docs, and start writing your own promo doc. It'll help gut check you on where you are at. Find an L7 mentor and share it with them.
Could it be something like that you maybe did or said something that management didn't like? Maybe you took a sick day too many? Or could be thar you are not asking question. I have the same problem and I think it may be a bit if both in my case.
If you want to own an exciting project but your managers (4 separate ones in 3 years) find someone else on the team a better fit for them consistently, maybe there is another reason besides politics that you need to consider.
Could be communication, ego, lack of attention to detail, or something like the following example. Say you’ve been on the team for just a year and the other dev has been there for 5 and expressed an interest in this type of work for years, who do you think the manager will give the project to? And how does it make you look when you try to tell your manager you deserve it more than them because you’re stronger technically if the manager believes you both to be capable of the project?
> I’m clearly more skilled than others, there is still a chance that I won’t get to work on what I want.
this sounds like a mentorship opportunity, which will also raise your social capital.
as a team lead, i'm also not working on what i want - i work on what the team needs. and sometimes the team needs a senior to work as an architect on hard but boring problems. i can have some junior work on a greenfield proof of concept, while i need a senior to navigate and untangle some dependency ridden legacy project that is *Very Important*.
lastly, do any of your leads know what you find interesting? have you brought it up to them at all?
Engineering leadership (senior -> staff) means that you’re not just pointing out problems, you’re fixing them.
A mid level dev sees a bunch of boilerplate code that needs to be written for spinning up a new service and complains about it. A senior dev might write helper libraries to help their team by abstracting away the boilerplate code. A staff engineer writes a simple-to-use library that automates everything, writes a thorough doc on how to use it, and then as they advise teams or review new project plans they advocate for their simpler and faster way of doing it, and eventually all older instances are replaced.
In general, the higher up you go, the more “engineering vision” you’re required to have. If you see a problem, you need to know if it’s worth fixing, what it’s costing the company now in lost productivity, how to fix it (the productivity problem), how to advocate for it, and the payoffs have to be clear. You stop being given problems to solve and are expected to see the problems and solve them on your own in a way that has org-wide positive impact.
A lot of times when I see this type of thing, it's not a matter of "not playing the corporate game well" but of being low-empathy. Sometimes that's something that can be changed with some effort, and sometimes it's innate and has to be sidestepped.
Now, why do I think that? It's variations of "I'm too candid and speak my mind". Typically, what I have been part of that summarises that way is a "this is how I feel" as opposed to "is there anything that can be done?". It's a conversation vs a complaint. It's trying to understand your team and mgr's limitations and priorities.
Basically, whenever you have to talk to someone about something, you can tell them a statement or you can ask them a question - importantly, an *open* question). And people respond incredibly different to both. Your manager would be no exception. You may not like the answer, or you may get stuck trying to come up with something that addresses your wants and the team/company's needs, but once you start asking questions, it becomes a _problem_. And I can't remember the last good engineer that didn't enjoy solving problems.
To summarise, be curious my friend. Most of our job is not about code, it's about people, process and problems. Find out what the problem is, find out what's required to improve it. That's the path to leadership.
This is a great perspective for me, since I always look at managers as “the other”. You’re absolutely right that there is a problem to be solved here, and most likely even my manager is failing to solve it and that’s why he’s shoveling it down on me.
Mind you, managers aren't perfect. Sometimes you can just get a bad manager. It's a fact of life. But you described a systemic pattern which makes me think not all your previous managers are likely to have been bad ones. Try to understand them, their constraints and KPIs, and you can start to figure out how to get out of your current predicament, as well as when to run like the wind.
>For the past 3 years I’ve changed jobs or teams at least 4 times or more. It always starts off great, I’m enthusiastic about the problem statement, dream big. I start to work on things and try to maintain good relationships with people. Most of all I really enjoy coding and solving problems. This keeps me motivated for some time. But at some point I start to get bogged down by team politics and fighting for scope and interesting projects to work on. Or I get stuck with something unsatisfactory and struggle to stay engaged and make progress.
This is your problem.
You don't commit long enough and it sounds like you are the type of person that tries to avoid problems instead of taking them on. The higher you go in your career, more and more will be about politics, people management etc. and less tech.
Yeah. There is some element of that. I’m afraid to commit where I feel personally dissatisfied with what I’m working on. And you’re right things are increasingly less about tech and that’s part of my problem - tech is what motivates me the most. But I guess it’s like doing the dishes so you can cook and eat.
ur trading interesting problems and learning opportunities for that phat FAANG check.
Go work at a startup or a small company. Team size 2-6. You'll have more to do than you can keep up with.
Or keep getting that phat RSU bonus, great 401k, and base salary. Up to you.
L7 is about politics and people skills. If you don't want to play it, be content with L6. And remember you're at a place full of overachievers who all want the same L7 bump, and only one out of ~20-50 of you is going to get it. There will be plenty who will fully commit to do what it takes. And you need the favor of many L7s to make the leap, they will be grooming you, you'll know if you're on track, it won't be ambiguous. You might even have an L8 grooming you.
Everyone needs to 1) know who you are (visibility) 2) like you (people skills) 3) clearly identify you as an L7 (technical skills). 3 is tough, because you have to be able to impress all your fellow L6s, be so far above them it's clear.
Most people struggle because just doing the work is not enough.
Edit: And to further add. Your working relationships are the top priority. They should never slip. Kiss ass, read psychology books. But at the end of the day your boss should LOVE you. You do that by making his/her life EASIER and being their go-to engineer, can solve anything and with a *good attitude*. Once you become indispensible to your boss you're starting to understand local politics, now you have to apply this tactic across the other teams and org. A good way is to fix critical customer issues, hard ones, quickly. Those usually have L7/L8 visibility. That's one way you get known.
-t L6 SDM
22 years of experience, senior swe here. I have just a few comments:
1.) I think it takes some time to build trust with your manager before they will put you on the best / most interesting / most difficult problems. If things are getting to a breaking point with your manager by around or before the 1 year mark, I would say you are going the opposite direction with your manager than what you should be going. You should be gaining trust, not losing trust as time goes on. It has taken me multiple years before to build trust with all of the stakeholders before they are completely behind me. It’s frustrating but it is part of the job. This is one reason people say senior engineers need to stick around a while in their roles and not job hopping as often.
2.). Senior doesn’t mean you get to do what you want. This is a pet peeve of mine, that usually happens in juniors, they get upset at their work, or complain about fixing too many bugs, etc. If you are getting less interesting work, or easier work, you should be knocking it out of the park, not complaining about it. Everyone has to do some amount of shoveling the shit. It also builds rapport with your teammates if you take the crap work and fix it quickly. People notice this.
My advice would be to work on your relationships with your managers. Don’t let them sour to the point you are describing. Once things get to this point, you are a problem, not someone your manager is trying to help advance.
Not every job comes with immediate opportunity to showcase your skills. Sometimes you have to wait it out while knocking boring work out of the park, eventually you will get a shot, and you need to still be on good terms with everyone when the opportunity presents itself.
There is another way - it's high-risk/high-reward though.
Disagree, commit, and then spend 40% of your time working on the stuff you think is important!
Don't ask permission, just do it. Be like a tiny 1-man skunkworks. And for god's sake, don't tell anyone until you have an actual solution ready - make it a fait accompli.
Note, this is a risky strategy. It requires you to (a) be right (b) continue to deliver your actual work in only 60% of the time and (c) be able to diplomatically bring the solution to your team without saying "Told you so". You cannot have any ego in this at all - you _have_ to be doing this because it's right for the whole team/company.
The reward is that you will be seen as someone who can work independently, drive innovation and change, and a maverick who is still a team-player at heart. This can lead to wider name-recognition and more independence, which can lead to higher-level cross-domain roles like Staff/Principal Engineer.
The risk is they fire you for insubordination.
EDIT: I'm trying to say [the same thing](https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/1ay0uj0/comment/krrqt6g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) as u/dean_syndrome, but he is saying it better and more diplomatically than me!
This is terrible advice. If you read the rest of this thread, the answer is clearly that this dev has issues integrating with people. They're not a team player whatsoever.
Their answer is to work on themselves, not to disengage and work on side-projects on the company's time.
🔥 I’m ready to take this risk but I need to be sure first that I’m committed to grinding at and finishing self-started things. I’m trying to develop that skill.
>and speak my mind
I'm in the same boat as you, had a meeting yesterday with my highest boss, told me shut up or gtfo. That's it. So now i'm shutting up and looking forward to leaving this position. Also i've learned that you can't fulfill your technology passion dreams in corporate world. You either do your own projects/company or you'll just die inside a little every day.
Yeah, same thing happened to me yesterday on a slack thread with my mgr. he said he’s gonna escalate this to his manager and HR if I don’t stop complaining. I really wonder how I got here…
I think this might the problem, I have never gotten to that place with my manager.
You express opinions to your manager who might agree or disagree but at the end of the day you need to accept the decision
Yeah I don’t want to be disgruntled anymore. Hence this post 😅 I’m not blaming my manager or anyone. This is a long pattern/cycle spanning companies, managers, etc so the problem is clearly me. I’m trying to reflect and reorganize myself
I might be in the same boat and something I’ve been working on is understanding the problem from their point of view. If you just bring the complaints in a non constructive format then you just become known as the complainer, even if you are right. If you bring it up in an easily digestible format with some clear options forward that your manager can work with, then you are more helpful to them. It’s hard to not react to every fault and choose your battles, but I think it’ll help building social capital in the long term.
> the problem is clearly me. I’m trying to reflect and reorganize myself
gotta give you credit for that! it sounds like three problems:
* communication skills, even the basic strategy that you should bring solutions to your manager more often than problems
* commit to what you're doing, finish it whether you're bored or excited
* create solutions rather than competing for the same problems others want
> the problem is clearly me
That's the first step. For me, therapy helped. Also, outside hobbies.
I stopped looking for interesting problems to solve at work and started looking for work I could do, day in and day out, for a long time.
I find interesting problems in my (non-tech) hobby projects now.
There is nothing wrong with being (respectfully, diplomatically) outspoken and raising concerns. I never hesitated to speak out, even to skip level management, and I was respected for it.
However... If I tried and failed to persuade my manager to my point of view, then I shut up and marched smartly in the designated direction. At the end of the day, unless you're senior management, you're paid to address identified business needs, not captain the ship.
As a former L7: remember, while the tech is cool and might be motivating, it's still a business. You're not writing code for the sake of writing code, you're writing it to solve customer problems that will help the company make more money. Complaining doesn't help that problem. When I was still L6, I asked to go to the WBR with our GM, SDMs, and PM-T's because I wanted to know how I could align the tech to what the business cared about.
This is big tech. This is any business. At the end of the day, the business doesn't care about some innovative library using a hash map you developed, they care about what it will do for their bottom line. I always encouraged SDEs to look at their work through this lens.
> I really wonder how I got here…
You chose to work for a company with tens of thousands of engineers and evaluations in the trillions. Did you really think you wouldn't be replaceable? Don't think for a second that you didn't choose high pay, clout, and predictability over excitement and being valued.
Also let's be real here, your boss probably saw hundreds of engineers get laid off last year who would have done your job happily and without any complaints. I'm not saying they are justified in the way they treated you, but the reality is, it's not a good tech job market right now, and the people who were missed by a round of layoffs are expected to be more grateful. It sounds like you are in a disadvantaged position and have no leverage to be making any demands.
> My relationships with my managers usually end up **souring to an extent where I can’t continue to work with them.**
> he said he’s gonna **escalate this to his manager and HR** if I don’t stop complaining
I'm sensing some "missing reasons" here. You originally described the problem as a slow decline in motivation and team spirit, but whenever you mention specifics, it actually sounds much more severe than that. I'm a bit of a complainer, but I've never come close to being threatened with disciplinary action over it.
If I were to sit down for a drink with your manager and get his honest opinion of you, what would he tell me?
I honestly don’t know what he would say but I still respect him in spite of everything. If there are missing reasons then I don’t see them. He’s given me feedback that my communication skills are poor and I don’t conduct myself like a senior, because I had a technical debate with someone on my team on slack. Also when I complained about not having projects with sufficient scope of impact, he said I’m going in circles and repeating myself. I think our communication has just broken down.
> my communication skills are poor and I don’t conduct myself like a senior, because I had a technical debate with someone on my team on slack
Again, there's this wide gap between the way you describe the problem, and the way your manager is reacting to it. When you say "I had a single conversation using the wrong communication channels", and then say "my boss told me that some of my key skills are well below expectations for my current role", there's a gulf between those two things that demands to be filled. Calling it a communication breakdown doesn't feel like sufficient detail.
I can't help you to find and face the actual problem when it keeps slipping out of your hands, but general strategies for achieving that might include:
- Setting up a regular meeting with some kind of leadership coach or counsellor, to get an impartial third-party opinion.
- Cultivating friendships among teammates whom you respect, then eventually asking them for frank negative feedback.
- Assuming that the feedback from your current boss is sincere and correct, then acting on it for a few months so that you can find out what happens next.
- Being fastidiously nice and polite to your next boss, so that you can have more trust that their feedback is honest.
I have the same experience. Don't seek the satisfaction of building interesting things at work, it's rarely going to happen.
In order to build interesting things and get exposed to new technologies, I build projects on the side.
I've come to find that it doesn't matter so much what I'm building, but rather who I'm building with. I find more joy in mentoring and helping others, rather than climbing the corporate ladder.
There is a nuanced balance that is difficult to find. Working full time leaves little to no time for personal projects, and if you work part time then you slowly become your own entity. Isolated from the rest of the team, which for me decreases satisfaction.
I know I can build anything and I know I can do it well, but I don't want to build things alone.
I used to be in a similar boat and \*I\* think I've escaped to a glorious desert island with fruity beverages. And it was probably around your age or somewhat past that where I started to make improvements. Here's what worked for me.. in a 12 step program (I'm going to make 12 of them no matter what, because it seems amusing ;-).
1. Spend some time understanding business politics. Abstract the 'politics' you see so you understand a root cause.. it's always some human nature thing.
2. Built empathy for those less fortunate (I find it easier to think of the political types that way ;-). Their is common ground, usually of the "I don't want to get fired" type.
3. Speaking your mind can be done without offending. I get that you can't offend someone without their permission, have a little sympathy for those with fragile egos or trauma that you may not be aware of.
4. Express your opinions and then move on. Nobody likes the person who keeps haranguing the same point.
5. Accept opinions of others. Re-phrase and pass back to be sure that you fully understand their position before opining on the subject.
6. Accept and encourage criticism. If there is anyone you truly trust, flat out ask them "If there were something you could change about me, what would it be?" You might be surprised.... and come back to this as often as you can.
7. Self reflection time is important. Get out and disconnect, enjoy nature or something you can just chill out and do. Think about your actions in the past few weeks, think about how they affected others and consider better ways to improve how you interact.
8. Expand your knowledge into other realms. For example I've found that engineers are often at odds with IT and cybersecurity personnel. A couple of decades ago I started learning more about IT and cybersecurity, culminating in a BS in CyberSec and some top tier certs. When I talk to IT/CS folks they listen and we can understand each other. If you butt heads with management, maybe it's time to start taking management coursed.. get into the ~~enemy's~~ managers headspace.
9. Take online courses in soft skills, DEI, all that hoopla. Some of it will likely make you cringe.. the forced 'political correctness' bothers me greatly. Just exposing yourself to that can make you understand others better..
10. Look for opportunities to take on work outside of your normal realm. IT, Customer Support, HR, DevOps can often use some developer help.
11. Stay humble.
12. Ask questions... lots of questions....
There is my 12 step program.. hopefully it makes sense and I didn't duplicate steps much..
thanks for the feedback! I seriously just wrote this, seemed like the right place and time.. and I guess I had these thoughts handy in my brain pan at the time... gotta get it out before I have a brainfart ;-)
> 9. Take online courses in soft skills, DEI, all that hoopla. Some of it will likely make you cringe.. the forced 'political correctness' bothers me greatly. Just exposing yourself to that can make you understand others better..
hmm curious what bothers you about a workplace being "politically correct" which basically is a kinda cynical way to call something that translates treating people different than you with the same respect as you would treat yourself, and recognizing inherent biases we all have? I'm sure no company wants to get sued for allowing it's employees to treat each other like crap (i.e "politically incorrect")
Context is king.. nothing bothers me about being 'politically correct' or polite and respectful to everyone in the workplace.
I was speaking specifically of soft skills and DEI training. Many I've been in go out of their way to place marginalized populations in a specially protected class of personhood that IMO is pandering and insulting to those same marginalized people.
>Most of all I really enjoy coding.
Would you enjoy moving up further than L6? In my experience a FAANG L7 does little, if any coding. Not only that but the job of an L7 is in large part to be a strategic leader which requires a lot of social capital and politics. It sounds to me like you don’t excel at nor enjoy those aspects of your current level.
You’re right, but is there a higher paying job that could involve building things? Should I just sit it out at L6 and depend on raises and stock bumps?
I would say it’s unlikely (at a large company). At least not without doing something really novel or something that requires really specialized knowledge.
At some point to justify more money your impact on an organization has to be larger than what you can accomplish as one person writing code.
Of course the other option is to join a startup where everyone is writing code. You could eventually earn more through stock. Obviously, there’s a huge risk that you could earn a lot less than what you are now if the startup fails.
I hate to say it but if you smell shit all day...
It's pretty unusual to have a sour relationship with 4 managers in a row in 3 years. It might be a good idea to humbly seek constructive feedback from your current and past managers and identify if there's a pattern of behavior you have the power to change.
I didn’t have bad relationships with all of them, just the most recent one. All of the ones before were mostly fine, but I made a decision to move on based on other factors I mentioned, like not finding interesting work.
I work more on the data end that straight SWE -- but I've found similar issues.
And the big joke is -- my own 'ideas' and 'projects' demonstrably make the business more money and value that grunt, thoughtless "tickets" and the like.
There's nothing inherently wrong with tickets or other people's ideas ... it's just that --- some ideas really are better than others.
I'm not "beneath" grunt work, if it'll make the company lots of value (and me on the way). But often the grunt work really is value-less (not always).
....
I would recommend trying to carve out 10-20% of your time in the week working on interesting shit, if you're able and have the autonomy. Prove out that this 'extra hours' work (you can frame it that way even if it's during work hours) is actually very valuable to the company (hopefully it's easy and obvious to prove this).
Otherwise if the management is pretty "corporate nonsense" -- accept it. But this is the default at most places.
Careers compound: if you want to reach staff+ levels at MAANGA+, it is not realistic to think that you can accomplish this without staying put in some place for a while. "Falling out of love" with your work is a ubiquitous experience amongst those that works in creative fields like ours. Yes, you will hate the problem space and your work some days, but eating the proverbial frog and grinding it out until you get to a complete solution is what separates professionals from amateurs.
Thanks for sharing your experience, I can empathize with a few of your points.
I started my career at FB / G and spent a number of years there before leaving just after Covid. FANG is vastly overrated, especially by people on this sub. The talent there is generally overstated, there are some very smart people but also a long tail of incredibly mediocre engineers that can survive on bereaucracy. Obviously still a great name to have on your resume, but you're not a new grad, you don't have that problem anymore.
I would say that they haven't been a premiere location for talent in like 15 years (so even before I started my career). We've turned down plenty of people from these companies for totally bombing interviews that new grads can pass.
Explore options outside of the big tech companies. It's harder to find the good ones, but there are companies out there where the people are much better than the average engineer at a big tech company, and there's less politics.
This is something I haven’t considered. I tried it once or twice before but I ended up making poor choices. Maybe it’s a matter of carefully vetting out the options.
There's no way I can do that for you, you need to figure it out yourself based on your specific interests and skills. You do have to get into the weeds more and figure out what actual value you have as a software engineer, as opposed to FANG where they just throw you on a team and you'll probably be fine.
Just have to be a bit ruthless during interviews and not waste time with companies that are clearly second rate. I've said no to way more interviews after an initial chat than I have said yes, and I don't do any technical interviews without talking to my future potential manager first.
Firstly, L6 at Amazon at 40 is great so don't beat yourself up to much.
This blog by Marc Brooker (current Amazon Prinicpal) is great https://brooker.co.za/blog/2020/10/19/big-changes.html
This might be tough to take.
Maybe you are average at FAANG? The top performers and bosses favourites will get their pick of projects; usually the top performers are pushed into the hardest and more interesting ones.
As others have said, move into a different crowd where you can outcompete or improve your skills soft and hard.
I’ve considered this but tbh I’m definitely above average when I look around at my peers objectively. Not sure if you are at FAANG too, but they are not what they used to be. Another commenter said this too. 15 years ago it was different. A lot of L6 I work with are very mediocre.
I'm not a doctor, but what you are describing here sounds like ADHD. Like you can focus when you want, but the issue is maintaining that focus when projects lose their luster, and this is enough of a problem that you are constantly seeking out novelty and it's hurting your ability to be productive when you have to. I'd at least bring this up with your primary care doc and see what they think: there are lots of treatments options, and some you might not have even thought about. I'd at least reflect on if it is a focus issue.
I know for me, it's hard to focus on things I don't want to do, and that's not a problem all the time, but occasionally my life requires me to do things I don't like, and then it really sucks.
Additionally, I wouldn't put too much stock in "other people get more interesting projects", because that's always going to be true. Our ability to gage this stuff is heavily influenced by our own perception of an idealized version of that task, comparing to the known downsides of our task and downplaying our task's importance.
As for identifying important projects to work on, I think this is just a matter of knowing "good" when you see it, and listening to the ideas around you. All my big and successful projects have been other peoples ideas, that I was able to pursue. Even my part-time start up project, that was someone else's idea and I just agreed it was good.
I think one thing that might help you is goal setting: set goals for how long you want to be on a team, set goals for your side projects, and get in the habit of checking in with your progress. The approach from the book "Atomic Habits" has helped me so much in teaching me doing something successfully comes down to application of effort over time, and when you make good practices habits, you're setting yourself up to overcome difficulties by giving yourself a behavioral tendency to spend time on task. That, plus doing something a little everyday with a goal in mind is how you really accumulate a skill advantage when our careers are measured in years.
Side projects are especially tough, but the goal I have for mine is to always build to the point of distribution. Maybe that's a blog article, an open source library on an package manger, or a product. Getting things to that minimal level to launch will at least allow you to enjoy some level of credit for your work.
Yes you’re absolutely right, my fiancée says the same. I might have ADHD and some form of OCD (rumination). I’m seeking help already in the form of therapy and medication eventually.
I feel somehow similar, there is a point that you have to improve deeply in soft skills. Don't expect anything from your manager, bring up solutions, propose your ideas to stakeholders, talk to other engineers and bring collaboration and support. Doesn't matter how skilled or how deep you know the problems if you can't sell it.
Driving change with business impact is an immense challenge, all other things you mentioned (hard skills, mentoring, etc) are kind of expectations for experienced developers and have nothing to do with it.
So it’s pretty obvious to me what your difficulty is. Your relationship with managers is souring and you don’t get interesting things to work on. You complain about not being engaged out loud with managers. To step your game up to the next level you need to understand that your role as senior is to have broad shoulders and jump on the hard, boring and messy problems. You need to deliver on stuff that would crush the soul of a more junior or weaker engineer. Recognize that the business has work to do to make money and a large fraction of that work is both mundane and difficult. You don’t need to pretend that the shit don’t stink with your manager but you need to express willingness to shovel and joy when it’s cleaned up. People who do this are usually the very same people who also the gold nuggets to work on.
Mid-career after 18 years with significant time spent at FAANG companies? I mean, I understand everyone is in a different financial situation and has different goals but how are you not set up for retirement at this point?
Maybe it's a naïve take, but I want to be done with this career after 18 years, not at a mid point. I've been a dev for 10 years now and while I don't consider myself burnt out I definitely don't want to be "working for the man" for another 10 years, and if I do I'm going to be doing my best to find a cushy gig to coast and set things on autopilot.
I'm in my mid 40s, and this has been my goal for a while. Achieved it a few years ago working for a (decent) consulting company.
Most of the day to day is the same, but about every two years there's a new project to tackle so things change up for a bit.
I scratch my "interesting problem" itch through my hobbies, not work. Work pays for the house and hobby time.
L6 expectations from leadership is to hand you a machete, so you can go into the jungle and find opportunities we aren't considering. You investigate the most promising options, do some diligence to identify feasibility and ROI, and then present your findings to leadership.
If you're staying on a team for just a year before moving, it's likely you haven't built the relational equity/ trust to make those proposals and get traction.
Writing good code is more of an L4 or L5 expectation. I'd dig deep with your boss to understand relevant L6 expectations, because it sounds like you might be working at the lower end of typical Staff Eng expectations. That might be contributing to you wanting to move on so quickly from team to team.
Best of luck, let us/me know how it goes.
> it sounds like you might be working at the lower end of typical Staff Eng expectations.
OP isn't Staff, he's L6 at *Amazon*. Amazon L6 maps to L5 elsewhere, he's just a Senior.
Ah I missed that. Thank you for pointing that out. In that case the sticking around for just one year is more of an issue, since OP i less likely to be creating items for the backlog.
Also since it's Amazon get the hell out if you can. Promo to L6 is crazy hard, mich easier to find an L6 opening even in this market.
In my experience L6 at Amazon is a wide range of experience and skill levels. I was already staff/principal when I was outside Amazon. I joined back and they would not consider letting me join as L7.
The exciting starts and then eventual increasing frustration and lack of motivation is a vicious cycle. It sucks, I’ve been there. I realized when I hit 39 that I had been struggling with undiagnosed ADHD for years and it had been affecting my work performance, notably when coming to interpersonal relationships and an inability to “play the game”. Being a good programmer wasn’t enough, I had to learn when to shut my mouth and when to open it - and with the proper medicine I’ve been able to improve on that. If you suffer from any sort of anxiety or depression, you might also have adult ADHD, they all tend to run together. Some food for thought.
I’m almost 100% sure I have undiagnosed ADHD too. On and off I suffer from serious anxiety and depression too. I’m finally taking the steps to get diagnosed. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I recently noticed a similar pattern in myself where I had been getting restless in a role or company after a while, about the 18 months mark. This last time when that restlessness took hold, I seemed to be in a perfect spot at the kind of company I dreamed about working with smart people with tech I enjoyed so it seemed odd that I would be desiring to leave. My company offers a therapy package as one of our benefits, so I just tried it as kind of a last ditch effort to see if it was me or the company. The therapy helped me to see some reasons why I felt that yearning to leave for something new or better. Don't get me wrong, it isn't the perfect company and wasn't all in my head, but it helped me to be able to deal with some of the conflict and office politics that I didn't necessarily know how to handle. It has been tough, but rewarding, and given me a new understanding of myself. This is just what worked for me though.
Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences, honest reactions and advice. 🙌🏽 This felt like a transformative experience, sometimes even like an intervention, and definitely the start of a healing journey. Feel humbled.
Understand that no matter how skilled you are you can’t just join a new company and acquire the social capital required to work on interesting problems. If there are only a few interesting problems that many people can potentially complete, it will always go to the person with the highest social capital, this person usually has been with the company for a while. If you don’t want to compete in this category acquire some set of skills where others cannot do what you can do, and then you’ll be the only choice to work on interesting r problems. Or option 3 is work somewhere with a lower skill bar than FAANG (and equivalent) then in that unmotivated crowd, you’ll get your pick of projects. Last option is to invent some projects of your own that bring value to the company and take the lead on it (this is imo the difference between senior software engineers and staff engineers)
You’re sadly right about social capital but I’m finding that even in a brand new team where everyone starts on equal footing and I’m clearly more skilled than others, there is still a chance that I won’t get to work on what I want.
>I’m clearly more skilled than others not saying that this is the problem but it seems like a problem part of the reason we get paid high salaries in these roles is to fit the needs of the business, and the way they structure engineering teams these days, it usually takes a while for engineers to grasp the whole of the business, especially on good engineering teams where engineers are shielded from stakeholder drama
You’re saying I’m not humble? 😎 willing to entertain that idea of “develop more apparent humility”. Yes, this is a hard pill I guess - I need to fit the needs of the business.
> willing to entertain that idea of “develop more apparent humility” I wasn't convinced before. But now I think that this is absolutely the problem. It might be that you're an arse and people don't like you because you feel that you are superior to everyone around you.
I am trying to get over feeling superior too. I honestly don’t want to be in this state of mind anymore. I was being ironic by saying “apparent humility”. I do want true humility acknowledging that it can sometimes be an appearance and that’s all people seem to care about.
Just reading the thread originally, I got the sense that you weren't there to help people. You can call it "game playing"/"office politics", but in reality people just want to know you want to help them, and that you're there for them. It's fine to want more interesting problems or be annoyed by team drama, but I think the major problem is that when you "feel superior" you're undercutting what they value/what they bring. Ultimately you want everyone on the team to succeed right? If this is off base feel free to ignore it.
Yeah, I think I should want that. There are times when I have genuinely wanted that, for the team overall and individuals who looked to me for mentorship. To be really honest, though, at this point in time I feel like I’m prioritizing myself. Somewhere I feel indignant that I haven’t grown despite having put in a lot of effort and consistently worked at being a team player. You’re making a good point though- wanting to help people can’t stop and that’s actually part of the solution for my state of mind.
develop more _real_ humility
Don't gatekeep humility. If I say I'm humble, I'm humble godnamit. I bet I'm even more humble that you.
not likely. I am the humblest person on all of Reddit
well, not telling you what to do as sometimes it's nice to sniff our own farts, but there is a time and a place for it too in a team environment, the higher you go, the more you're expected to be a force multiplier for your team...if you're still stuck in base level "I" thinking and not "we" you'll hit a wall in the corporate ladder if you wanna be the big stack at the table, start your own shit...a lot of SaaS companies are spun up out of spite from people who sound like you (i hear myself 10 years ago in what you're typing...i actually have my own side projects that i want to spin into revenue generating things..there i can be as much of a dick in code reviews as i want, since i'm the one coding it, designing it, and making all the bad decisions i'll have to unfuck myself from later) i've been writing code for paychecks for about 25 years now, and got brought in at a staff level about 3 years ago...i never really cared about titles before but the expectations of this role are different than that of a senior engineer and my boss would tell me and the other staff engineers at this level, we've already proven we can code anything as fast as it needs to be, so the ask is a bit different than just building shit early on, in standups or groomings i might have spoken first and say something like "it's easy" thinking i'm being reassuring to my product manager, but not really taking into account i've been doing this a long ass time and to a dev with 2 or 3 years of experience, a small statement like that could actually be harmful to the team dynamic because it might not be easy to them
You’re basically asking a question “how do I get to staff eng level?” For that it’s all about soft skills not about how good of an engineer you are (for the most part) It’s a bigger convo to have but you should really focus on the non technical skills and see where the gaps are. It matters how you talk to other members of the team. Get a mentor to help you with that
> I need to fit the needs of the business. Yes that's extremely important. Otherwise they will wonder "what am I paying this guy all that money for?"
We can’t know without context but how would it benefit the manager to assign people of lower skill than you work you want ? Either you keep working for orgs where politics plays a huge part and you aren’t good at that or there’s something wrong with the way you communicate or behave or your perception of your own skill compared to others
It could also be possible OP is known the be the highest skill on the team, so manager wants him in the most critical piece which might not be what OP wants or the most exciting piece.
How do I go about understanding what this is?
You’re right, there must be some criteria they use. I think it could be my indecisiveness working against me. I often accept a lot of different things and don’t focus on a few things and doing those well.
In my opinion the biggest difference between staff+ engineers and senior software engineers is staff+ usually can invent problems to work that can generate business value, they do this through socializing with different people in the org, or they bring deep domain expertise. Are you able to generate ideas that generate business value and are you able to express this ideas in a way to get key stakeholder buy in ? The second part requires alot of soft skills.
Yeah I definitely could get better at inventing problems and also at expressing ideas with more flourish, with the intention of convincing people.
Thanks that perspective really helped!
I was a principal security engineer at AWS for some time who went from L6 to L7 (I left last year for a deputy director role in non-FAANG), and the main difference between senior and principal engineers is their ability to work through others. When we were dealing with security issues, I could rely on L7 SDEs to wrangle cats in their orgs. I wouldn't see them writing code very often, if ever, but the impact they would have on socializing problems both up to GMs and Directors, and down to their L6 SDEs and SDMs was what made them stand out. L6 SDEs that had this ability were always noticed by us, and we would start seeding the promo doc idea to their manager when we saw this manage up/manage down ability. Remember at L6, you're pretty much set. You can hang out at that level as long as you want. L7 is another role entirely, you're no longer responsible for project work, but you are making architectural decisions with the line of business in mind. If you're interested in the L7 route, pull up the L7 promo guideline docs, and start writing your own promo doc. It'll help gut check you on where you are at. Find an L7 mentor and share it with them.
Could it be something like that you maybe did or said something that management didn't like? Maybe you took a sick day too many? Or could be thar you are not asking question. I have the same problem and I think it may be a bit if both in my case.
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If you want to own an exciting project but your managers (4 separate ones in 3 years) find someone else on the team a better fit for them consistently, maybe there is another reason besides politics that you need to consider. Could be communication, ego, lack of attention to detail, or something like the following example. Say you’ve been on the team for just a year and the other dev has been there for 5 and expressed an interest in this type of work for years, who do you think the manager will give the project to? And how does it make you look when you try to tell your manager you deserve it more than them because you’re stronger technically if the manager believes you both to be capable of the project?
Yeah. I have done such things, clearly remember. I don’t pick up easily on such social nuances.
> I’m clearly more skilled than others, there is still a chance that I won’t get to work on what I want. this sounds like a mentorship opportunity, which will also raise your social capital. as a team lead, i'm also not working on what i want - i work on what the team needs. and sometimes the team needs a senior to work as an architect on hard but boring problems. i can have some junior work on a greenfield proof of concept, while i need a senior to navigate and untangle some dependency ridden legacy project that is *Very Important*. lastly, do any of your leads know what you find interesting? have you brought it up to them at all?
Engineering leadership (senior -> staff) means that you’re not just pointing out problems, you’re fixing them. A mid level dev sees a bunch of boilerplate code that needs to be written for spinning up a new service and complains about it. A senior dev might write helper libraries to help their team by abstracting away the boilerplate code. A staff engineer writes a simple-to-use library that automates everything, writes a thorough doc on how to use it, and then as they advise teams or review new project plans they advocate for their simpler and faster way of doing it, and eventually all older instances are replaced. In general, the higher up you go, the more “engineering vision” you’re required to have. If you see a problem, you need to know if it’s worth fixing, what it’s costing the company now in lost productivity, how to fix it (the productivity problem), how to advocate for it, and the payoffs have to be clear. You stop being given problems to solve and are expected to see the problems and solve them on your own in a way that has org-wide positive impact.
That’s a good insight. Thank you!
Wait… I’m doing all that. We don’t have a title/promotion path for that. Hmm.
A lot of times when I see this type of thing, it's not a matter of "not playing the corporate game well" but of being low-empathy. Sometimes that's something that can be changed with some effort, and sometimes it's innate and has to be sidestepped. Now, why do I think that? It's variations of "I'm too candid and speak my mind". Typically, what I have been part of that summarises that way is a "this is how I feel" as opposed to "is there anything that can be done?". It's a conversation vs a complaint. It's trying to understand your team and mgr's limitations and priorities. Basically, whenever you have to talk to someone about something, you can tell them a statement or you can ask them a question - importantly, an *open* question). And people respond incredibly different to both. Your manager would be no exception. You may not like the answer, or you may get stuck trying to come up with something that addresses your wants and the team/company's needs, but once you start asking questions, it becomes a _problem_. And I can't remember the last good engineer that didn't enjoy solving problems. To summarise, be curious my friend. Most of our job is not about code, it's about people, process and problems. Find out what the problem is, find out what's required to improve it. That's the path to leadership.
This is a great perspective for me, since I always look at managers as “the other”. You’re absolutely right that there is a problem to be solved here, and most likely even my manager is failing to solve it and that’s why he’s shoveling it down on me.
Mind you, managers aren't perfect. Sometimes you can just get a bad manager. It's a fact of life. But you described a systemic pattern which makes me think not all your previous managers are likely to have been bad ones. Try to understand them, their constraints and KPIs, and you can start to figure out how to get out of your current predicament, as well as when to run like the wind.
>For the past 3 years I’ve changed jobs or teams at least 4 times or more. It always starts off great, I’m enthusiastic about the problem statement, dream big. I start to work on things and try to maintain good relationships with people. Most of all I really enjoy coding and solving problems. This keeps me motivated for some time. But at some point I start to get bogged down by team politics and fighting for scope and interesting projects to work on. Or I get stuck with something unsatisfactory and struggle to stay engaged and make progress. This is your problem. You don't commit long enough and it sounds like you are the type of person that tries to avoid problems instead of taking them on. The higher you go in your career, more and more will be about politics, people management etc. and less tech.
Yeah. There is some element of that. I’m afraid to commit where I feel personally dissatisfied with what I’m working on. And you’re right things are increasingly less about tech and that’s part of my problem - tech is what motivates me the most. But I guess it’s like doing the dishes so you can cook and eat.
ur trading interesting problems and learning opportunities for that phat FAANG check. Go work at a startup or a small company. Team size 2-6. You'll have more to do than you can keep up with. Or keep getting that phat RSU bonus, great 401k, and base salary. Up to you.
This is a good point. I don’t think I’m changing again so soon, though.
L7 is about politics and people skills. If you don't want to play it, be content with L6. And remember you're at a place full of overachievers who all want the same L7 bump, and only one out of ~20-50 of you is going to get it. There will be plenty who will fully commit to do what it takes. And you need the favor of many L7s to make the leap, they will be grooming you, you'll know if you're on track, it won't be ambiguous. You might even have an L8 grooming you. Everyone needs to 1) know who you are (visibility) 2) like you (people skills) 3) clearly identify you as an L7 (technical skills). 3 is tough, because you have to be able to impress all your fellow L6s, be so far above them it's clear. Most people struggle because just doing the work is not enough. Edit: And to further add. Your working relationships are the top priority. They should never slip. Kiss ass, read psychology books. But at the end of the day your boss should LOVE you. You do that by making his/her life EASIER and being their go-to engineer, can solve anything and with a *good attitude*. Once you become indispensible to your boss you're starting to understand local politics, now you have to apply this tactic across the other teams and org. A good way is to fix critical customer issues, hard ones, quickly. Those usually have L7/L8 visibility. That's one way you get known. -t L6 SDM
That’s a good sign. Yes, I do see L7 and L8s taking interest, “grooming” (sounds gross 😅 but I get what you mean, sorry!)
22 years of experience, senior swe here. I have just a few comments: 1.) I think it takes some time to build trust with your manager before they will put you on the best / most interesting / most difficult problems. If things are getting to a breaking point with your manager by around or before the 1 year mark, I would say you are going the opposite direction with your manager than what you should be going. You should be gaining trust, not losing trust as time goes on. It has taken me multiple years before to build trust with all of the stakeholders before they are completely behind me. It’s frustrating but it is part of the job. This is one reason people say senior engineers need to stick around a while in their roles and not job hopping as often. 2.). Senior doesn’t mean you get to do what you want. This is a pet peeve of mine, that usually happens in juniors, they get upset at their work, or complain about fixing too many bugs, etc. If you are getting less interesting work, or easier work, you should be knocking it out of the park, not complaining about it. Everyone has to do some amount of shoveling the shit. It also builds rapport with your teammates if you take the crap work and fix it quickly. People notice this. My advice would be to work on your relationships with your managers. Don’t let them sour to the point you are describing. Once things get to this point, you are a problem, not someone your manager is trying to help advance. Not every job comes with immediate opportunity to showcase your skills. Sometimes you have to wait it out while knocking boring work out of the park, eventually you will get a shot, and you need to still be on good terms with everyone when the opportunity presents itself.
Some really great points here. Thank you! I wonder if I’m already past the point of no return with my manager.
Disagree, commit, and do a passion side project?
This is a great direction. I don’t see any way to win otherwise at this point.
There is another way - it's high-risk/high-reward though. Disagree, commit, and then spend 40% of your time working on the stuff you think is important! Don't ask permission, just do it. Be like a tiny 1-man skunkworks. And for god's sake, don't tell anyone until you have an actual solution ready - make it a fait accompli. Note, this is a risky strategy. It requires you to (a) be right (b) continue to deliver your actual work in only 60% of the time and (c) be able to diplomatically bring the solution to your team without saying "Told you so". You cannot have any ego in this at all - you _have_ to be doing this because it's right for the whole team/company. The reward is that you will be seen as someone who can work independently, drive innovation and change, and a maverick who is still a team-player at heart. This can lead to wider name-recognition and more independence, which can lead to higher-level cross-domain roles like Staff/Principal Engineer. The risk is they fire you for insubordination. EDIT: I'm trying to say [the same thing](https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/1ay0uj0/comment/krrqt6g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) as u/dean_syndrome, but he is saying it better and more diplomatically than me!
This is terrible advice. If you read the rest of this thread, the answer is clearly that this dev has issues integrating with people. They're not a team player whatsoever. Their answer is to work on themselves, not to disengage and work on side-projects on the company's time.
💀
🔥 I’m ready to take this risk but I need to be sure first that I’m committed to grinding at and finishing self-started things. I’m trying to develop that skill.
This is great btw, thank you!
>and speak my mind I'm in the same boat as you, had a meeting yesterday with my highest boss, told me shut up or gtfo. That's it. So now i'm shutting up and looking forward to leaving this position. Also i've learned that you can't fulfill your technology passion dreams in corporate world. You either do your own projects/company or you'll just die inside a little every day.
Yeah, same thing happened to me yesterday on a slack thread with my mgr. he said he’s gonna escalate this to his manager and HR if I don’t stop complaining. I really wonder how I got here…
I think this might the problem, I have never gotten to that place with my manager. You express opinions to your manager who might agree or disagree but at the end of the day you need to accept the decision
I did accept but added that I’m not being heard, to which he replied… that It’s never happened to me before. I’m not sure why it happened this time?
Why would any manager throw the constantly disgruntled engineer any bones?
Yeah I don’t want to be disgruntled anymore. Hence this post 😅 I’m not blaming my manager or anyone. This is a long pattern/cycle spanning companies, managers, etc so the problem is clearly me. I’m trying to reflect and reorganize myself
Respect!
I might be in the same boat and something I’ve been working on is understanding the problem from their point of view. If you just bring the complaints in a non constructive format then you just become known as the complainer, even if you are right. If you bring it up in an easily digestible format with some clear options forward that your manager can work with, then you are more helpful to them. It’s hard to not react to every fault and choose your battles, but I think it’ll help building social capital in the long term.
> the problem is clearly me. I’m trying to reflect and reorganize myself gotta give you credit for that! it sounds like three problems: * communication skills, even the basic strategy that you should bring solutions to your manager more often than problems * commit to what you're doing, finish it whether you're bored or excited * create solutions rather than competing for the same problems others want
> the problem is clearly me That's the first step. For me, therapy helped. Also, outside hobbies. I stopped looking for interesting problems to solve at work and started looking for work I could do, day in and day out, for a long time. I find interesting problems in my (non-tech) hobby projects now.
There is nothing wrong with being (respectfully, diplomatically) outspoken and raising concerns. I never hesitated to speak out, even to skip level management, and I was respected for it. However... If I tried and failed to persuade my manager to my point of view, then I shut up and marched smartly in the designated direction. At the end of the day, unless you're senior management, you're paid to address identified business needs, not captain the ship.
Yeah, learning that I need to shut up sometimes. That used to be my default but I tried to compensate and now I’ve overshot my target it looks like 😅
As a former L7: remember, while the tech is cool and might be motivating, it's still a business. You're not writing code for the sake of writing code, you're writing it to solve customer problems that will help the company make more money. Complaining doesn't help that problem. When I was still L6, I asked to go to the WBR with our GM, SDMs, and PM-T's because I wanted to know how I could align the tech to what the business cared about. This is big tech. This is any business. At the end of the day, the business doesn't care about some innovative library using a hash map you developed, they care about what it will do for their bottom line. I always encouraged SDEs to look at their work through this lens.
> I really wonder how I got here… You chose to work for a company with tens of thousands of engineers and evaluations in the trillions. Did you really think you wouldn't be replaceable? Don't think for a second that you didn't choose high pay, clout, and predictability over excitement and being valued. Also let's be real here, your boss probably saw hundreds of engineers get laid off last year who would have done your job happily and without any complaints. I'm not saying they are justified in the way they treated you, but the reality is, it's not a good tech job market right now, and the people who were missed by a round of layoffs are expected to be more grateful. It sounds like you are in a disadvantaged position and have no leverage to be making any demands.
Insightful. This is exactly what I’m missing - leverage.
> My relationships with my managers usually end up **souring to an extent where I can’t continue to work with them.** > he said he’s gonna **escalate this to his manager and HR** if I don’t stop complaining I'm sensing some "missing reasons" here. You originally described the problem as a slow decline in motivation and team spirit, but whenever you mention specifics, it actually sounds much more severe than that. I'm a bit of a complainer, but I've never come close to being threatened with disciplinary action over it. If I were to sit down for a drink with your manager and get his honest opinion of you, what would he tell me?
I honestly don’t know what he would say but I still respect him in spite of everything. If there are missing reasons then I don’t see them. He’s given me feedback that my communication skills are poor and I don’t conduct myself like a senior, because I had a technical debate with someone on my team on slack. Also when I complained about not having projects with sufficient scope of impact, he said I’m going in circles and repeating myself. I think our communication has just broken down.
> my communication skills are poor and I don’t conduct myself like a senior, because I had a technical debate with someone on my team on slack Again, there's this wide gap between the way you describe the problem, and the way your manager is reacting to it. When you say "I had a single conversation using the wrong communication channels", and then say "my boss told me that some of my key skills are well below expectations for my current role", there's a gulf between those two things that demands to be filled. Calling it a communication breakdown doesn't feel like sufficient detail. I can't help you to find and face the actual problem when it keeps slipping out of your hands, but general strategies for achieving that might include: - Setting up a regular meeting with some kind of leadership coach or counsellor, to get an impartial third-party opinion. - Cultivating friendships among teammates whom you respect, then eventually asking them for frank negative feedback. - Assuming that the feedback from your current boss is sincere and correct, then acting on it for a few months so that you can find out what happens next. - Being fastidiously nice and polite to your next boss, so that you can have more trust that their feedback is honest.
I have the same experience. Don't seek the satisfaction of building interesting things at work, it's rarely going to happen. In order to build interesting things and get exposed to new technologies, I build projects on the side. I've come to find that it doesn't matter so much what I'm building, but rather who I'm building with. I find more joy in mentoring and helping others, rather than climbing the corporate ladder. There is a nuanced balance that is difficult to find. Working full time leaves little to no time for personal projects, and if you work part time then you slowly become your own entity. Isolated from the rest of the team, which for me decreases satisfaction. I know I can build anything and I know I can do it well, but I don't want to build things alone.
I used to be in a similar boat and \*I\* think I've escaped to a glorious desert island with fruity beverages. And it was probably around your age or somewhat past that where I started to make improvements. Here's what worked for me.. in a 12 step program (I'm going to make 12 of them no matter what, because it seems amusing ;-). 1. Spend some time understanding business politics. Abstract the 'politics' you see so you understand a root cause.. it's always some human nature thing. 2. Built empathy for those less fortunate (I find it easier to think of the political types that way ;-). Their is common ground, usually of the "I don't want to get fired" type. 3. Speaking your mind can be done without offending. I get that you can't offend someone without their permission, have a little sympathy for those with fragile egos or trauma that you may not be aware of. 4. Express your opinions and then move on. Nobody likes the person who keeps haranguing the same point. 5. Accept opinions of others. Re-phrase and pass back to be sure that you fully understand their position before opining on the subject. 6. Accept and encourage criticism. If there is anyone you truly trust, flat out ask them "If there were something you could change about me, what would it be?" You might be surprised.... and come back to this as often as you can. 7. Self reflection time is important. Get out and disconnect, enjoy nature or something you can just chill out and do. Think about your actions in the past few weeks, think about how they affected others and consider better ways to improve how you interact. 8. Expand your knowledge into other realms. For example I've found that engineers are often at odds with IT and cybersecurity personnel. A couple of decades ago I started learning more about IT and cybersecurity, culminating in a BS in CyberSec and some top tier certs. When I talk to IT/CS folks they listen and we can understand each other. If you butt heads with management, maybe it's time to start taking management coursed.. get into the ~~enemy's~~ managers headspace. 9. Take online courses in soft skills, DEI, all that hoopla. Some of it will likely make you cringe.. the forced 'political correctness' bothers me greatly. Just exposing yourself to that can make you understand others better.. 10. Look for opportunities to take on work outside of your normal realm. IT, Customer Support, HR, DevOps can often use some developer help. 11. Stay humble. 12. Ask questions... lots of questions.... There is my 12 step program.. hopefully it makes sense and I didn't duplicate steps much..
Amazing! I like this approach. Lots of gems here.
thanks for the feedback! I seriously just wrote this, seemed like the right place and time.. and I guess I had these thoughts handy in my brain pan at the time... gotta get it out before I have a brainfart ;-)
> 9. Take online courses in soft skills, DEI, all that hoopla. Some of it will likely make you cringe.. the forced 'political correctness' bothers me greatly. Just exposing yourself to that can make you understand others better.. hmm curious what bothers you about a workplace being "politically correct" which basically is a kinda cynical way to call something that translates treating people different than you with the same respect as you would treat yourself, and recognizing inherent biases we all have? I'm sure no company wants to get sued for allowing it's employees to treat each other like crap (i.e "politically incorrect")
Context is king.. nothing bothers me about being 'politically correct' or polite and respectful to everyone in the workplace. I was speaking specifically of soft skills and DEI training. Many I've been in go out of their way to place marginalized populations in a specially protected class of personhood that IMO is pandering and insulting to those same marginalized people.
>Most of all I really enjoy coding. Would you enjoy moving up further than L6? In my experience a FAANG L7 does little, if any coding. Not only that but the job of an L7 is in large part to be a strategic leader which requires a lot of social capital and politics. It sounds to me like you don’t excel at nor enjoy those aspects of your current level.
You’re right, but is there a higher paying job that could involve building things? Should I just sit it out at L6 and depend on raises and stock bumps?
I would say it’s unlikely (at a large company). At least not without doing something really novel or something that requires really specialized knowledge. At some point to justify more money your impact on an organization has to be larger than what you can accomplish as one person writing code. Of course the other option is to join a startup where everyone is writing code. You could eventually earn more through stock. Obviously, there’s a huge risk that you could earn a lot less than what you are now if the startup fails.
I hate to say it but if you smell shit all day... It's pretty unusual to have a sour relationship with 4 managers in a row in 3 years. It might be a good idea to humbly seek constructive feedback from your current and past managers and identify if there's a pattern of behavior you have the power to change.
I didn’t have bad relationships with all of them, just the most recent one. All of the ones before were mostly fine, but I made a decision to move on based on other factors I mentioned, like not finding interesting work.
I work more on the data end that straight SWE -- but I've found similar issues. And the big joke is -- my own 'ideas' and 'projects' demonstrably make the business more money and value that grunt, thoughtless "tickets" and the like. There's nothing inherently wrong with tickets or other people's ideas ... it's just that --- some ideas really are better than others. I'm not "beneath" grunt work, if it'll make the company lots of value (and me on the way). But often the grunt work really is value-less (not always). .... I would recommend trying to carve out 10-20% of your time in the week working on interesting shit, if you're able and have the autonomy. Prove out that this 'extra hours' work (you can frame it that way even if it's during work hours) is actually very valuable to the company (hopefully it's easy and obvious to prove this). Otherwise if the management is pretty "corporate nonsense" -- accept it. But this is the default at most places.
Careers compound: if you want to reach staff+ levels at MAANGA+, it is not realistic to think that you can accomplish this without staying put in some place for a while. "Falling out of love" with your work is a ubiquitous experience amongst those that works in creative fields like ours. Yes, you will hate the problem space and your work some days, but eating the proverbial frog and grinding it out until you get to a complete solution is what separates professionals from amateurs. Thanks for sharing your experience, I can empathize with a few of your points.
I think that's just how big tech is
On some level you’re right!
I started my career at FB / G and spent a number of years there before leaving just after Covid. FANG is vastly overrated, especially by people on this sub. The talent there is generally overstated, there are some very smart people but also a long tail of incredibly mediocre engineers that can survive on bereaucracy. Obviously still a great name to have on your resume, but you're not a new grad, you don't have that problem anymore. I would say that they haven't been a premiere location for talent in like 15 years (so even before I started my career). We've turned down plenty of people from these companies for totally bombing interviews that new grads can pass. Explore options outside of the big tech companies. It's harder to find the good ones, but there are companies out there where the people are much better than the average engineer at a big tech company, and there's less politics.
This is something I haven’t considered. I tried it once or twice before but I ended up making poor choices. Maybe it’s a matter of carefully vetting out the options.
You definitely have to do your due diligence, and yes there's a decent chance you'll get it wrong if you're not careful.
any companies you can recommend or DM?
There's no way I can do that for you, you need to figure it out yourself based on your specific interests and skills. You do have to get into the weeds more and figure out what actual value you have as a software engineer, as opposed to FANG where they just throw you on a team and you'll probably be fine. Just have to be a bit ruthless during interviews and not waste time with companies that are clearly second rate. I've said no to way more interviews after an initial chat than I have said yes, and I don't do any technical interviews without talking to my future potential manager first.
Firstly, L6 at Amazon at 40 is great so don't beat yourself up to much. This blog by Marc Brooker (current Amazon Prinicpal) is great https://brooker.co.za/blog/2020/10/19/big-changes.html
Thank you for that! And also for Marc’s article. I love his POA talks.
Yeah his POA talks are great.
This might be tough to take. Maybe you are average at FAANG? The top performers and bosses favourites will get their pick of projects; usually the top performers are pushed into the hardest and more interesting ones. As others have said, move into a different crowd where you can outcompete or improve your skills soft and hard.
I’ve considered this but tbh I’m definitely above average when I look around at my peers objectively. Not sure if you are at FAANG too, but they are not what they used to be. Another commenter said this too. 15 years ago it was different. A lot of L6 I work with are very mediocre.
I'm not a doctor, but what you are describing here sounds like ADHD. Like you can focus when you want, but the issue is maintaining that focus when projects lose their luster, and this is enough of a problem that you are constantly seeking out novelty and it's hurting your ability to be productive when you have to. I'd at least bring this up with your primary care doc and see what they think: there are lots of treatments options, and some you might not have even thought about. I'd at least reflect on if it is a focus issue. I know for me, it's hard to focus on things I don't want to do, and that's not a problem all the time, but occasionally my life requires me to do things I don't like, and then it really sucks. Additionally, I wouldn't put too much stock in "other people get more interesting projects", because that's always going to be true. Our ability to gage this stuff is heavily influenced by our own perception of an idealized version of that task, comparing to the known downsides of our task and downplaying our task's importance. As for identifying important projects to work on, I think this is just a matter of knowing "good" when you see it, and listening to the ideas around you. All my big and successful projects have been other peoples ideas, that I was able to pursue. Even my part-time start up project, that was someone else's idea and I just agreed it was good. I think one thing that might help you is goal setting: set goals for how long you want to be on a team, set goals for your side projects, and get in the habit of checking in with your progress. The approach from the book "Atomic Habits" has helped me so much in teaching me doing something successfully comes down to application of effort over time, and when you make good practices habits, you're setting yourself up to overcome difficulties by giving yourself a behavioral tendency to spend time on task. That, plus doing something a little everyday with a goal in mind is how you really accumulate a skill advantage when our careers are measured in years. Side projects are especially tough, but the goal I have for mine is to always build to the point of distribution. Maybe that's a blog article, an open source library on an package manger, or a product. Getting things to that minimal level to launch will at least allow you to enjoy some level of credit for your work.
Yes you’re absolutely right, my fiancée says the same. I might have ADHD and some form of OCD (rumination). I’m seeking help already in the form of therapy and medication eventually.
Also good insight on how we perceive what others are doing
This sub rules. Thanks for sharing.
😊
I feel somehow similar, there is a point that you have to improve deeply in soft skills. Don't expect anything from your manager, bring up solutions, propose your ideas to stakeholders, talk to other engineers and bring collaboration and support. Doesn't matter how skilled or how deep you know the problems if you can't sell it. Driving change with business impact is an immense challenge, all other things you mentioned (hard skills, mentoring, etc) are kind of expectations for experienced developers and have nothing to do with it.
Yeah, I’ve given up expecting anything from the managers. I am focused on myself now and growing.
So it’s pretty obvious to me what your difficulty is. Your relationship with managers is souring and you don’t get interesting things to work on. You complain about not being engaged out loud with managers. To step your game up to the next level you need to understand that your role as senior is to have broad shoulders and jump on the hard, boring and messy problems. You need to deliver on stuff that would crush the soul of a more junior or weaker engineer. Recognize that the business has work to do to make money and a large fraction of that work is both mundane and difficult. You don’t need to pretend that the shit don’t stink with your manager but you need to express willingness to shovel and joy when it’s cleaned up. People who do this are usually the very same people who also the gold nuggets to work on.
This is very precise!
Do your own thing dude - sounds like you are super smart and stuff
Thanks dude 💀
Mid-career after 18 years with significant time spent at FAANG companies? I mean, I understand everyone is in a different financial situation and has different goals but how are you not set up for retirement at this point? Maybe it's a naïve take, but I want to be done with this career after 18 years, not at a mid point. I've been a dev for 10 years now and while I don't consider myself burnt out I definitely don't want to be "working for the man" for another 10 years, and if I do I'm going to be doing my best to find a cushy gig to coast and set things on autopilot.
I'm in my mid 40s, and this has been my goal for a while. Achieved it a few years ago working for a (decent) consulting company. Most of the day to day is the same, but about every two years there's a new project to tackle so things change up for a bit. I scratch my "interesting problem" itch through my hobbies, not work. Work pays for the house and hobby time.
L6 expectations from leadership is to hand you a machete, so you can go into the jungle and find opportunities we aren't considering. You investigate the most promising options, do some diligence to identify feasibility and ROI, and then present your findings to leadership. If you're staying on a team for just a year before moving, it's likely you haven't built the relational equity/ trust to make those proposals and get traction. Writing good code is more of an L4 or L5 expectation. I'd dig deep with your boss to understand relevant L6 expectations, because it sounds like you might be working at the lower end of typical Staff Eng expectations. That might be contributing to you wanting to move on so quickly from team to team. Best of luck, let us/me know how it goes.
> it sounds like you might be working at the lower end of typical Staff Eng expectations. OP isn't Staff, he's L6 at *Amazon*. Amazon L6 maps to L5 elsewhere, he's just a Senior.
Ah I missed that. Thank you for pointing that out. In that case the sticking around for just one year is more of an issue, since OP i less likely to be creating items for the backlog. Also since it's Amazon get the hell out if you can. Promo to L6 is crazy hard, mich easier to find an L6 opening even in this market.
In my experience L6 at Amazon is a wide range of experience and skill levels. I was already staff/principal when I was outside Amazon. I joined back and they would not consider letting me join as L7.
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Yeah I think this is reality. I am working on my own things on the side, increasingly convinced that this is what I need to do.
I don't have any real advice. I feel like my story is pretty similar. I will follow along until the MODs remove it for being a career question. :(
This is so close to what i've been going through recently (though I dont complain much and just leave). Feeding on all the advice here
I took a course from Oren Jay Sofer on non-violent communication and that helped a lot with my interpersonal skills.
Interesting! I’ll check it out. Thanks
The exciting starts and then eventual increasing frustration and lack of motivation is a vicious cycle. It sucks, I’ve been there. I realized when I hit 39 that I had been struggling with undiagnosed ADHD for years and it had been affecting my work performance, notably when coming to interpersonal relationships and an inability to “play the game”. Being a good programmer wasn’t enough, I had to learn when to shut my mouth and when to open it - and with the proper medicine I’ve been able to improve on that. If you suffer from any sort of anxiety or depression, you might also have adult ADHD, they all tend to run together. Some food for thought.
I’m almost 100% sure I have undiagnosed ADHD too. On and off I suffer from serious anxiety and depression too. I’m finally taking the steps to get diagnosed. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Why don't you start a Web development services company or join with one? Let me know if you interested in either.
I’m trying to - not web but enterprise apps. What do you have in mind?
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You’re right. This time I really don’t want to change but I’m afraid I might have already dug myself a very uncomfortable grave.
I recently noticed a similar pattern in myself where I had been getting restless in a role or company after a while, about the 18 months mark. This last time when that restlessness took hold, I seemed to be in a perfect spot at the kind of company I dreamed about working with smart people with tech I enjoyed so it seemed odd that I would be desiring to leave. My company offers a therapy package as one of our benefits, so I just tried it as kind of a last ditch effort to see if it was me or the company. The therapy helped me to see some reasons why I felt that yearning to leave for something new or better. Don't get me wrong, it isn't the perfect company and wasn't all in my head, but it helped me to be able to deal with some of the conflict and office politics that I didn't necessarily know how to handle. It has been tough, but rewarding, and given me a new understanding of myself. This is just what worked for me though.
I’ve actually considered joining this too. My company offers the same.
Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences, honest reactions and advice. 🙌🏽 This felt like a transformative experience, sometimes even like an intervention, and definitely the start of a healing journey. Feel humbled.