Hacker News Reader

Comment by PhantomGremlin | Hacker News Reader

managers should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help develop his or her career

That's interesting. I've had a number of managers in my career and never, not even once, has one of them espoused anything resembling such a position. It's always what can the employee do for the company, not what's mutually beneficial.

View on HN

I felt like most of my managers at Google tried pretty hard at this. We certainly did have conversations about what I wanted long-term within my career and how that might best be accomplished within the organization.

Ultimately, I ended up deciding that what I wanted couldn't be achieved inside Google, but they certainly made the effort.

I had a similar experience to this at amazon. I think the nature of programming work is so murky that it makes sense to do this even if you don't care about the employee (though my managers genuinely seemed to). What I mean by murky is that similar looking amounts of work can take 2 days or 2 weeks depending on how excited the engineer is about the project. Maybe it's more common with engineering managers for this reason?

At five years there, I have yet to have that conversation. 1:1s are either what I'm working on or more promises about "this will make a really strong promotion case." Namely motivation for working on whatever shit work needs doing next.

Might be time to find an organization that believes in a mutual relationship, I'm afraid.

Some Google managers are good, some are average and a few are not good at all. Try to work for the first ones.

How to do that? That is the hard part, net work and move on when you work for a bad one.

I spent nearly a decade moving up within another hugely successful tech company and every manager I ever had took time with me once or twice a year to discuss my goals and to outline steps I could take to reach them. Perhaps this is a cultural trait of successful companies (those dominant within their field) that helps them reach such heights.

When companies treat their employees with respect like this, good employees end up staying longer and accomplishing more, which is good for both parties.

"I spent nearly a decade moving up within..."

That's a characteristic of lifetime employment, not the kind of jobs under discussion here.

I'm curious...are you still in touch with those managers? Did their efforts convince you to maintain a relationship even after you left?

At Microsoft my managers were pretty consistent about doing this, and I tried to do it when I was a manager. Aside from the occasional conflict of interest when there isn't an available "step-up" position in someone's current team, it's a win-win.

I've had several managers and mentors at Intel that we're sincerely interested in helping me develop my career. I'm not saying its universal, but I've seen some.

It occurs to me looking at this and the other responses so far in this subthread - that it's quite likely more common in larger organizations (Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Intel) where career advancement is not quite so directly correlated to "leaving for a better position in a different company". If you can get your best employees promoted into roles where they are likely to become your reports again when you yourself get promoted, there's more benefit for the manager in advancing people they want to keep "on their team" as they themselves climb the career ladder. There is, I guess, less opportunity for that sort of mutually beneficial career development in startups or SMEs (with the exception of the occasional "freelance teams" that you sometimes see all jump ship from one project/startup to another together - I've seen that both in tiny hardware startups as well as in 9 figure projects in major corporations.)

Some of these places have technical tracks where you can get promoted, have more money and a better title, but not change your place hierarchically within the team.

I think your right - there definilty a different incentive dynamic. At intel, I once heard someone mention recruiting strategy that goes something like "Intel - you're next 5 software jobs" ..which i thought was a pretty interesting and powerful approach. I've certainly had 5 software jobs at Intel over my 16 years there, and the ability to move in a large company may have also allowed me to select for better managers/mentors.

Actually, there is generally even more opportunity for career development in startups than in larger organizations. If the company is growing, new positions are opening up regularly and there isn't a large bench of talent to fill them with.

When I was a manager in a small startup, I tried to regularly discuss their career goals and how they could develop towards those goals. One of the benefits of a startup was that we had a lot of flexibility to create experiences matching those goals.

several managers and mentors at Intel that we're sincerely interested in helping me develop my career

I know that Intel has changed. A lot. But in the early 1980's Andy Grove (as President, before he was CEO) came up to Oregon to speak to the employees. Someone asked him when they were going to have showers for the employees. Andy responded "Intel is a place of employment, nothing more."

That's not easily forgotten, even though Intel did eventually install showers while Andy was still in charge!

Of course good managers care about their reports, regardless of the tone set by top management.

Sadly, most managers don't talk with their employees about career development. There is an irrational fear that having these conversations gives an employee "permission" to leave, even though an employee certainly doesn't need his or her manager's permission to take another job!

I try to do it a lot. I often have conversations that go something like "Thisis me taking my $companyName hat off and speaking with my 'friend of $employeeName' hat on, but as much as this will cause me problems I realy suggest you consider $significantCareerEnhancement even though it will cause me $problemsIfYouMoveOrLeave as a result."

(I'm also surprised/disappointed at how rarely that advice is taken - there's a _very_ strong tendency for people to "stay put" in a sub optimal career position instead of taking the risk of jumping into the unknown and possiby scarey "next level up". So many devs tell me "I'm not ready for a mid level role yet" or equivalent, even when thay _clearly_ are...)

So many devs tell me "I'm not ready for a mid level role yet" or equivalent, even when thay _clearly_ are...

There's a difference between being ready for a midlevel role, in the sense of being able to take on the responsibilities and requirements, and wanting to take on the midlevel role. For example, if a developer sees that the "seniors" on his team 1) don't get to program as much, because they're in meetings all the time 2) have a lot more stress, because of having to take responsibility for design decisions 3) don't get compensated very much more and 4) sacrifice their ability to switch jobs easily by becoming more specialized in the methods and practices of the company they're currently working for, I think it's entirely rational for the developer to not desire that promotion.

But, of course, it's not politic to say, "Oh, I don't want that promotion, because it's a lot of work and I don't see any upside to it," so people make euphemisms. Saying, "I'm not sure I'm ready for that," is a good way of demurring while not causing offense, and simultaneously leaving the door open so that they can be considered for a promotion in the future.

The next time someone says that they're not "ready" for a mid-level role, I would like you to ask yourself, "Are they not ready, or are they not willing?"

Sure - there's definitely some of that.

There may also be some distrusting "Why is my manager encouraging me to leave? I'd better dig myself in and make sure I don't fuck anything up" thoughts (although I'd like to think I'm not thought of as "that guy").

But I also see cases that are closer to a reverse Dunning Kruger effect, people who just don't realise (or admit to themselves) how good they are compared to their peers. (Sometimes at an astonishing penalty to their earnings...)

> (Sometimes at an astonishing penalty to their earnings...)

Which is the primary reason why earnings are typically kept secret. Company policy almost certainly prohibits you from saying: "John makes 110k/y Joe, you are three times as good as John and you make 90k/y, we most certainly are not going to pay you 330k/y, but maybe you should ask for a 30k raise ?"

One of the more interesting things I read about is how Salesforce.com reviewed their employees and their salaries, realized that female employees were underpaid, and increased their salaries accordingly, rather than waiting for someone to ask. I'm afraid that's rather rare, though.

I am an engineering manager and I am explicit about telling my team that they should expect and pursue personal career growth during their employment at any company. My challenge is to figure out how keep this aligned with the company's needs.

The fluidity of employment argues strongly against it.

An employer doesn't train people, they hire those with the skill. If an employee is no longer valuable, the employee moves on. The employer has no particular interest in or control over the employee's career before or after their 'assignment'.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com