[HN Gopher] Titles (2017)
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Titles (2017)
Author : dsr12
Score : 41 points
Date : 2022-03-11 14:14 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I worked for a traditional Japanese corporation.
|
| For a long time, they only had one VP. Some years ago, they had a
| reorg, and spawned a few more VPs, but each one ran a standalone
| business unit (basically, a corporation inside a corporation).
| They had billion-dollar budgets, and managed hundreds (or
| thousands) of people.
|
| This meant that they got "the corner desk." This was a small
| desk, like you might see a teacher sitting at, in the corner of
| the bullpen room.
|
| I once went on a round of gladhand visits to Silicon Valley
| companies. Most were small; a couple were medium-sized. The
| company I worked for could get in the door with pretty much
| anyone.
|
| The leader of my team was a Senior Manager (not even a General
| Manager), but had the confidence of the GMs (which was where most
| of the power actually lived). I was just an Engineering Manager.
| I was along to vet the tech.
|
| Just about Every. Single. Person. That. We. Met. was a "Vice
| President." We got a good laugh from that.
|
| I also know a lot of folks that work for banks, in Manhattan.
| Banks have _lots_ of VPs. They occupy small cubicles, and often
| have no direct reports at all.
| gneray wrote:
| Good to see this article making the rounds. Titles incentivize
| the wrong behavior.
| smcin wrote:
| This post name is linkbait. ('Titles' of what? SaaS? Video games?
| Cryptocurrencies?)
|
| A better post name: 'Considerations to avoid when assigning job
| titles in small early-stage startups'
| hackernewds wrote:
| Sounds great for the company. And awful for the employees.
|
| Assuming the employee _belongs_ to the company with no
| consideration for their next tour of duty (as Gokul says) seems
| self-minded
| klodolph wrote:
| I worked at a small company, got whatever title I wanted (short
| of CTO), and it didn't matter one lick when I got hired away.
| People know about title inflation at small companies and even
| if you're a "VP of engineering" at a four-person startup (like
| in the article) you're still gonna get evaluated as if your
| role were IC.
|
| Just look at all the "vice president" positions at investment
| banks.
| jedberg wrote:
| Startups sure but this article advocates for never having
| titles even at a large company. And that can lead to
| problems. Netflix only has "Senior Software Engineer", and
| when people leave Netflix they sometimes have a hard time
| getting a Principle eng role at another company because "you
| can't jump from senior to principle", not realizing that at
| Netflix you can have people with the Senior title who are
| doing Principle level work already.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| > when people leave Netflix they sometimes have a hard time
| getting a Principle eng role at another company because
| "you can't jump from senior to principle"
|
| I'd hope engineers would know that their incoming title is
| part of the offer package and thus may be
| negotiable...especially in the current job market.
|
| Also, I've heard rumors you can have a satisfying career
| without reaching the vaunted role of principal; however,
| who knows if those rumors can be trusted? :)
|
| I'm of the opinion that titles are a lousy game to play,
| because they are inherently zero sum. Plus, as mentioned in
| the article, the rules for progressing are entirely
| different at small vs large companies, and growth vs not-
| growing stages. Nothing wrong with wanting to grow and
| improve, but the metrics used for evaluating titles are
| often opaque and not always under your control, so fixating
| on them seems like a recipe for frustration.
| jedberg wrote:
| > I'd hope engineers would know that their incoming title
| is part of the offer package and thus may be negotiable
|
| Sure, but you don't even get considered for those higher
| level roles and that's the main problem. You don't show
| up in searches for "staff engineer" or "principle
| engineer" so recruiters aren't even aware of you (for
| Netflix this is less of a problem but for engineers from
| similar orgs it's an issue).
|
| > Also, I've heard rumors you can have a satisfying
| career without reaching the vaunted role of principal
|
| It's not the title that's important, it's the scope of
| the role and the impact. Usually the title comes along
| with it and is a good indicator of what the scope will
| be.
|
| > I'm of the opinion that titles are a lousy game to
| play, because they are inherently zero sum.
|
| I agree but like I said above, it's not the title per se
| that's important but the scope that it represents. At a
| startup it's less important because you can make your own
| scope, but at a large enterprise, your title pretty much
| determines your scope.
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