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The career path of software engineers and how to navigate it Nikolay Stoitsev, Engineering Manager @ Uber

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Career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer

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Uber Software Engineer Software Engineer II Senior Software Engineer Senior Software Engineer 2 Staff Software Engineer Sr. Staff Software Engineer Principle Engineer Levels have different names Google SWE 2 SWE 3 Senior SWE Staff SWE Senior Staff SWE Principal Engineer Distinguished Engineer Google Fellow Facebook E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E8 E9

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Can’t directly compare levels between companies

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Full career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer ?

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Good Engineer Good Manager

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Full career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer Staff Software Engineer

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Full career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer Engineering Manager Staff Software Engineer

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Full career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer Engineering Manager Staff Software Engineer Senior Engineering Manager Principal Engineer Director Individual Contributor (IC) Ladder

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Full career ladder Intern Software Engineer Software Engineer II Sr. Software Engineer Engineering Manager Staff Software Engineer Senior Engineering Manager Principal Engineer Director Individual Contributor (IC) Ladder Manager Ladder

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You can grow as an engineer and as a manager

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● Is autonomous in writing code ● Knows how to unblock themselves and ask for help ● Can solve well defined tasks with supervision IC Ladder - Intern

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● Knows how to unblock themselves ● Helps other on the team ● Can solve well defined tasks without supervision IC Ladder - SWE

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● Demonstrate end to end ownership ● Can solve any task with minimal supervision ● Turn feedback in growth IC Ladder - SWE 2

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● Leader in the projects they work on ● Can solve ambiguous tasks ● Sets culture and best practices in the team IC Ladder - SSWE

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● Recognised leader outside of their team ● Proposes solutions to problems spanning multiple teams ● Drives big impact work across the company IC Ladder - Staff SWE

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EM EM Sr. EM Director VP CTO Manager Ladder Director VP Sr. EM

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● Responsible for single team ● Sets direction and leads the execution ● Grows the team Manager Ladder - EM

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● Leads multiple big teams ● Leads long term technical and business solutions across the teams Manager Ladder - Director

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● Leads teams across multiple domains ● Charts the future of the company ● Establishes the culture Manager Ladder - VP

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EM or IC? https://medium.com/hackernoon/a-voight-kampff-test-for-identifying-engineering-managers- bb8512c70857

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Do you care more about people or technology?

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How to become a manager? Sr. Software Engineer Tech Lead EM Expert

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82% of the people made into managers don’t succeed in the role source: Gallup State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders, 2015

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How to become an engineering manager?

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How to become a product manager?

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How to become a technical product manager?

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How to grow

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Every career step is hard

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Working hard is just 25% of the formula

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Switching jobs doesn’t help

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Master the skills on the previous level

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Requires mindset changes from the previous level

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Has new skills to be mastered

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So growth has to be directed

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Competency framework https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/career-development/career-matrix.html

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It’s not a checklist

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Conscious Competence learning model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence

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Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetence Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence

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Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetence Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence

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Pick one growth area at a time

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Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetence Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence

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Understand how to do it and why

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Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetence Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence

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Practice it

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Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetence Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence

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Career conversations

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You need to have career conversations with your manager

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Have regular 1:1

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Ask for feedback

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Communicate your goals clearly

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Never let your role define your impact, let your impact define your role Managing up

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The single best hack to constantly become better

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Find a mentor

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Mentor - someone who you admire and knows you

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There is no stack overflow for your career growth

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It’s like friendship

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What to talk about?

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Build relationship

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“Code review” your decisions and reactions

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Ask for technical advice - wisdom and opinion

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Better to be outside of your team

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The second best hack

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Be a mentor

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Scale yourself with writing

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The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change - Camille Fournier

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https://medium.com/@daniel.heller/ten-principles-for-growth-69015e08c35b

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https://medium.com/darius-foroux/how-writing-changed-my-life-8786ecd5650c

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https://leadingsnowflakes.com/

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https://deprogrammaticaipsum.com/2016/04/25/being-a-developer-after-40/

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Q&A