> To me, in a way, it reads like Principal IC is the worst possible job.
It depends on the person, I think. Personally, I often end up doing this sort of work, particularly in smaller companies. I really like it, but appreciate that the vast, vast majority of people I work with would hate it.
For some people, they prefer to lead through influence, rather than through a reporting line. There's a lot of toil in managing people (well), and some really excellent people don't like the core job of management, but are really really strong in some technical area, or have a broad enough perspective and enough personality to convince other people to do stuff.
In some ways, it's the software engineering world's PM, given that you have influence but not direct hierarchical power, and what matters is the amount of teams that you can influence (like sometimes this is through a piece of software, designing and building Airflow was this kind of work).
A valid perspective. I don't mind influencing people in the areas I know, but I resent the politicking and being forced to do it outside my area of expertise (and I don't believe about Principal IC can really know enough about everything, like the article implies).
You worked in the design of Airflow? We're heavy users at my current company.
Not only that, but leading through a reporting line is 90% influence, too. Relying on pulling rank will get your best reports to find a way to leave ASAP, and others will follow.
Technically yes, but it’s not much different for line managers and often second level managers, though. Maybe you can approve expenses up to $500 at a time and get headcount for a couple more people approved from time to time. Not that different from an IC with a strong relationship with directors and VPs getting the same sort of allocations approved for a team/project they work with/are spinning up.
It depends on the person, I think. Personally, I often end up doing this sort of work, particularly in smaller companies. I really like it, but appreciate that the vast, vast majority of people I work with would hate it.
For some people, they prefer to lead through influence, rather than through a reporting line. There's a lot of toil in managing people (well), and some really excellent people don't like the core job of management, but are really really strong in some technical area, or have a broad enough perspective and enough personality to convince other people to do stuff.
In some ways, it's the software engineering world's PM, given that you have influence but not direct hierarchical power, and what matters is the amount of teams that you can influence (like sometimes this is through a piece of software, designing and building Airflow was this kind of work).