Career Growth - Beyond IC vs Manager
A colleague once asked me, "What was some of the good mentoring guideline that might have been shared with you in past to help you become a Sr PE?"
The traditional view presents career progression as a binary choice: you either stay on the Individual Contributor (IC) track or switch to the management track. But in my experience, this is an oversimplified model that doesn't help you learn and grow.
Let me illustrate this with an example:
Imagine you're a CXO launching a critical, game-changing initiative. You have three candidates to choose from:
- A software architect skilled at building systems and applications
- A manager with a track record of delivering results and managing effective teams
- Someone who regularly contributes to code and architecture while successfully managing complex projects
Who would you pick to lead?
Rethinking Career Growth
While most companies define career ladders as mutually exclusive paths - either management or IC. I've developed a different mental model over my years working across various teams and roles. This model views career growth as a combination of three dimensions:
- Spectrum of Skills
- Problems to be Solved
- Sphere of Influence
True growth means expanding in all three dimensions, though not necessarily linearly or at the same time.
Spectrum of Skills
Your career typically begins as a software engineer, focusing on mastering programming languages, frameworks, and tools. You start by picking up tasks, writing code, and fixing bugs.
As you progress, you begin tackling architecture problems. While you're still coding, you're also writing architecture documents, designing systems, and evaluating trade-offs. This is when you start engaging in discussions, debates, and consensus-building. You begin collaborating with product teams, designers, and business stakeholders while building your reputation.
But here's the key: while technical skills dominate early career stages, you're simultaneously developing people skills and process understanding. The real growth comes from realizing that skills are skills - they're not confined to categorical boxes. Reaching senior levels isn't about becoming either a better coder or a better manager - it's about learning to learn whatever skills you need to get things done effectively.
Problems to be Solved
Early in your career, you work on assigned tasks - coding, reviewing, deploying, and marking them complete. As you advance, you handle more complex tasks and eventually lead initiatives and projects. However, the real growth begins when you start identifying problems yourself.
Problems exist everywhere - in codebases, architecture, product experience, and processes. The key is developing the ability to:
- Identify issues and patterns that others might miss
- Build compelling narratives around why these problems matter
- Research and develop effective solutions
- Execute and iterate on those solutions
This cycle of identifying problems and solving them becomes your engine for learning and career growth. The problems will change, evolve, but this fundamental approach remains constant.
Sphere of Influence
Drawing from Stephen Covey's concept of "circle of influence," think of your influence as a sphere that expands in multiple directions. This influence isn't tied to titles or positions - it's about creating visibility for your work and ideas.
Your narratives should always connect your work to its importance for team effectiveness, system architecture, product, user experience, and business outcomes. To be truly effective, your influence needs to extend in multiple directions—across technology, product, processes, and people. You should be able to communicate and collaborate effectively with peers, managers, and cross-functional teams.
A key part of career growth is learning how to scale your impact through others. There is only so much you can do on your own. As you progress to roles like Tech Lead, Principal Engineer, or Engineering Manager, your ability to mentor, unblock, and elevate others becomes essential. Helping your teammates succeed and grow helps you grow your sphere of influence.
Easier Said Than Done
On paper, this model might seem straightforward. But, in practice, your time & energy are finite. You'll constantly juggle multiple projects, initiatives, and responsibilities. You can't simultaneously focus on learning new skills, solving complex problems, and building influence.
Think of this model as a compass rather than a turn-by-turn navigation guide. It's perfectly fine - and often necessary - to focus on one dimension at a time. The key is maintaining awareness of all three dimensions while making conscious choices about where to direct your energy.
Roles & Titles
Who doesn't like important-sounding titles?
While titles and roles are important markers of career progression, they shouldn't be your primary focus. They define accountability and scope of work, but they don't limit what you can learn or how you can grow.
For example, a tech lead is accountable for service uptime, but that doesn't prevent them from learning new technologies or architectural patterns. You can follow the traditional title-based career progression, or you can chart your own path by continuously learning, solving meaningful problems, and building your reputation.
Remember: Focus on expanding your skills, tackling increasingly complex problems, and growing your sphere of influence. The roles, titles, and compensation will naturally follow.