Discussion

woeirua: Is a manager “good” if they’re not talking about your career growth? I disagree with the author on this point so the rest of it really doesn’t follow. Then again, he also had 20 managers in 18 years… so yeah I can see why none of his managers ever got around to asking about his career growth.

bluGill: Even if any did, none could have done anything meaningful to push his career growth.

pjmlp: > I had over 20 managers across my 18 years at Amazon. They were mostly good managers, and some of them were great. But not one of them ever came to me unprompted and said, “Let’s talk about your career growth.”Maybe not at Amazon, but surely at almost every big corporation I worked on, there were even milestones, and career matrixes.

raw_anon_1111: Amazon has a career matrix (former employer). But they didn’t proactively help me with my career - not that I cared. My entire goal was to survive my 4 year initial offer and get the f** out of dodge. I was 46 when I was hired.

giantg2: I'm at a different comapny and it's the same. They have some basic framework/matrix, but managers aren't going to help you get to the next level. In my experience the matrix isn't followed anyways - they promote whoever they want whether or not they meet the stuff in the matrix. It's all just opinion based anyways.

pkorzeniewski: Let's be honest, nobody gives a shit about you personally in any job, you either deliver what you're paid to deliver or they couldn't care less if you're gone the next day and forget about you completely the day after, even if they like you on a personal level. Employees are an unpleasent expanse that the business must incur and if AI will make it feasible to replace all emloyees to save money, nobody will even blink an eye, just count the money saved.

NoMoreNicksLeft: A few years from now, do you think, will anyone notice that all the customers who used to be able to afford the product have starved to death and sales are plummeting? Will they be sad or confused by this mystery?

doublerabbit: Does anyone notice all the users who can afford the product now? No, nothing to see here. They'll just keep selling and profit gaining anyway possible.

sailfast: [delayed]

kemiller: I have a lot of shit about my employees the first time I was a manager. It burned me out, but it made for an amazing team.

icemanx: It always surprised me when people talked about their Bosses / Managers like they were some sort of gods that were going to save them and protect them from all bad things in the world.

rvz: > Employees are an unpleasent expanse that the business must incur and if AI will make it feasible to replace all emloyees to save money, nobody will even blink an eye, just count the money saved.This is why many companies have already "achieved AGI internally". Just ask Block, Meta (x4), Amazon, xAI, JP Morgan, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Atlassian, Morgan Stanley and so on.

stego-tech: It used to be that managers would take capable workers under their mentorship and prepare them to move into their old role, as their manager was helping them do the same. Everyone extended a hand down to pull someone up, because companies promoted internally and hired from within.That's not the case anymore. Your manager won't mentor you not because they don't want to, but because they're also struggling to find footing and progression in a corporate world where nobody gives a shit about the folks beneath them, nor do they have any vested interest in long-term organizational health. It's not personal, it's just the system our predecessors put into practice so they could have an easier time keeping money and power for themselves.If we want to care about the careers of others again, we have to build institutions where mentorship and training happen, as well as where good ideas are recognized and rewarded. That's something even the most "meritorious" of SV companies completely lack atm, and they're viewed as the companies to emulate by the rest of the investor class and industry. Until and unless other companies reject those fads in favor of strategies that grow and improve their orgs from within again, we're all kind of on our own.

y1n0: People! They’re the worst!Kidding aside, I am quite introverted and also quite happy alone. Not all the time, but more often than not.If I had a business idea that i was passionate about and could do it with just AI and avoid hiring people? Yeah, I might do that.On the other hand ideas are cheap and it seems to me a key differentiator between success and failure is marketing/sales, and execution that others can’t match.I might be suffering a lack of imagination but I don’t see public models as an execution differentiator. If one person can do it so can another. Having an excellent team of people that know how to work well together and can execute is a differentiator. Enigibeers might be a dime a dozen. But great teams are not.Marketing/sales. That might be getting a bite taken out by ai but it’s at the spam level of marketing and sales. Solid marketing and sales are the life blood of many successful orgs.I think for AI to be a differentiator, it would have to be your own model, or your own dataset that elevates your model above others in execution.

sheikhnbake: would be pretty sick to have a career to save in the first place

righthand: Or a union to at least take that charge.

raw_anon_1111: Exactly how would a union help?

righthand: See: automated train conductors

moritonal: Lets add some context. Amazon is the author's only job. 5yrs Software, 7yrs Senior, 4yrs Principal, now runs a YouTube self-help. Reading through there are multiple lines that collectively paint a picture of a difficult career."I had over 20 managers across my 18 years at Amazon", whilst this might be out of the author's hands, that's a wild manager history."..when I finally pushed for bigger scope at Amazon. My manager’s initial reaction wasn’t excitement. It was something closer to “But you’re doing so well where you are.”", most managers generally push their devs to always be doing larger pieces of work, if they aren't, that's weird."I was a passenger for the first 10 years of my Amazon career", which doesn't really line up, unless they're referring to their horizontal move to Prime in an effort to find promotive work."Not because I suddenly got better at my job, but because I started being intentional about which parts of my job were ... mapped to what the next level required.", which means the author worked out how to correctly market themselves internally."You know where you want to be in five years, and you’re actively seeking out the work that will get you there eventually.", again, they worked out how to find promotive work. This seems to be the key take-away they're dancing around.

wiseowise: > most managers generally push their devs to always be doing larger pieces of work, if they aren't, that's weird.Now weird at all, and maybe that's "most managers" within your career? I've seen my share of complacent managers who were fine with status quo.

lo_zamoyski: I think most managers prefer the status quo; why wouldn't they? Charitably, you can think of it as an assumption on the manager's side that you're fine with the way things are, because you haven't said anything. Similar things can be said about salary.I don't know why people assume managers are interested in increasing salaries and distributing promotions. Every incentive and preference works against those things. If you want change, you have to ask for it.

ike2792: I've been an engineering manager for 9 years and I've always understood that a big part of my job is career development for people on my team. An EM's role is to hire, retain, and develop talented engineers so that the team they manage can succeed. It always amazes me when I hear that managers don't do this. If they aren't developing their team, what are they doing?

foobarian: I stayed away from the management track but friends who didn't tell me one of the metrics they are graded on is retention, i.e. if your reports leave at a more than average rate you will have a problem.

ike2792: Every engineer in a given department knows who the good and bad managers are. If you don't care about your engineers' development, you won't be able to keep good engineers on your team as they will transfer internally. Engineers also talk to directors and make sure they know who the good managers are. There's really no upside to treating your engineers like crap.

g947o: Are they actual career growth plans for just internal milestones for you to chase after, including promotions towards the next level?A real career advice should sound like "You are too good for this company. Find you future opportunities and growth elsewhere."

wiseowise: Was it worth it?

nicce: > "..when I finally pushed for bigger scope at Amazon. My manager’s initial reaction wasn’t excitement. It was something closer to “But you’re doing so well where you are.”", most managers generally push their devs to always be doing larger pieces of work, if they aren't, that's weird.From the business perspective, it may not be good to push. If they are really good at what they currently do, the manager would need to find a replacement, and there is no certainty that the old worker provides more value in the different job. When only the money is weighted, this will happen often. Seems to fit for Amazon's work culture.

bluGill: The problem is bored employees find a new job elsewhere. Employees who feel they are not valued find a new job elsewhere. If you can find them a new job in the company you can have them train their replacement - years later the replacement can ask "do you remember why you did...". It also means if the old project has an emergency you have a bunch of people who can jump in much faster - to some extent this adding people to a late project won't make it latter (only some extent, it isn't perfect).People also get old and retire (or die). By moving people around a bit you ensure that your training plan still works because you are using it. This also means there will be openings to move up the ladder, make sure you get the people on them. (There are stories from my company where after a big layout they got scared and hired almost nobody for the next 20 years, then those who made it passed the layoffs started retiring and there wasn't a mid level of engineers following to promote).

cobolcomesback: I work at Amazon and I’ve had almost the opposite experience. There are dedicated career check ins twice a year that managers are required to have (separate from pay change discussions). Each of the orgs I’ve worked in have also had their own career growth things - one of them required quarterly “how are you doing on your career goal?” questionnaires that you were supposed to review with your manager.Frankly I’ve had _too many_ managers at Amazon wanting to talk about career growth. Maybe it’s just my org, but everyone is obsessed with it.

skeeter2020: I'm on a break after getting run down in my last role at the EM / Director level, but I certainly gave a shit, and some of my directs (10-15%?) gave a shit that I gave a shit, and they're now better leaders. Most of this is from their hard work, but I gave them one possible template: genuinely care about your people. My hope is that what I spent of myself was more than made up with what they added. When you're a naive pessimist, leverage is the key multiplier of effective leadership. one who expects the worst, yet is continually surprised when they get it. Sometimes secretly an embarrassed optimist.

wiseowise: > If they aren't developing their team, what are they doing?Collecting paycheck, protecting status quo, creating impression of work?

cube00: > they couldn't care less if you're gone the next day and forget about you completely the day afterThis is a lesson I wish I learnt earlier.I quit thinking I was irreplaceable based on the sheer urgent firefighting load they put on me. Once I quit, never heard from them again. All those urgent tasks that somehow only I got assigned "because there's nobody else", suddenly managed to get done by someone else or nobody because they weren't actually urgent."If you want something done, give it to a busy person" - Benjamin Franklin

coffeebeqn: I was even the “lead” at a SaaS in daily firefighting mode and pushing new features out quickly on a team of three engineers and one half-time one. I was 99% sure they’d go down the next day I left but somehow they kept on trucking. We’re all replaceable whether we like to think it or not

zulux: The cemetery is filled with irreplaceable people.

cobolcomesback: At every job I’ve had, across all the managers I’ve had, my immediate manager (and usually their manager as well) genuinely cared about me and my team and our well being as well as our careers. My _company_ and its executives surely didn’t give a damn if they even knew our names, but the actual humans I work face to face with definitely do.

bluGill: Managers are human (at least so far). As humans they care about other people they know.Managers will sometimes not help you because they are lazy. In a few cases culture will make them discriminate against you. However in general managers like you and want you to do well.

tacostakohashi: For the most part, "career matrixes", "development plans", and the like are just generic internal marketing to placate people and create the illusion that managers / the company care about their career development, and they don't have to do anything.To a lesser extent performance reviews / ratings are the same - "you're doing great, keep it up!" - they don't really tell you what you need to do to progress. You have to figure that out and drive it for yourself.

geodel: In my experience (mainly IT related), when one first starting a career, first 5-10 years are standardized are promotion/title change for an average employee. After that if one is known by at least 1-2 level above their managers and/or other team managers, to have any chance of further growth. IME as time go by current managers have less and less power to promote as gap between manager and employee reduces.

raw_anon_1111: Did you fight for raises? If your manager told you choose 30% to cut would you have? Of course you would, your “caring” meant nothing. Your first loyalty is to the people who decide your paycheck

raw_anon_1111: My wife cares about me and won’t say “because Bob said I had to divorce you, you have to go”.Any manager will let me go if their manager tells them to.

cobolcomesback: I’ve been part of organizational discussions. Every manager ive worked with has actively fought, and fought hard, to keep, promote, or get pay raises for their employees. They don’t just bend over and say “okay boss” if asked to cut people.If you treat your managers like soulless entities and don’t build relationships with them, they’ll probably do the same to you. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.