Staff+ vs. Engineering Manager. A reaction to "Don't become a manager"
A post talking about not becoming an Engineering Manager trended on Hacker News today. The honest truth is that no one knows how LLMs are going to affect anyone, let alone SDMs. There are too many factors at play to predict the future. However, in the debate between the SDM and Staff+ engineer tracks, I don't think LLMs actually matter that much.
The post Don't become an Engineering Manager is a reasonable and honest take. But what was more interesting were the hacker news comments. There is a lot of "grass is greener" sentiment on both sides.
A lot of the comments talk about which job has more pay or more opportunity. The reality is that it's a tough time for anyone outside of the mid level. You have a regular flood of experienced talent coming from layoffs at the traditional FAANGs like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon. There is a lot of competition out there.
While watching the industry grow, I would say that the engineering manager role has grown proportionally with organization size, hitting a 6-12 ratio depending on the company. But the staff+ engineering role has grown dramatically. Level growth is natural as an industry matures. It gives engineers something to work through on the career treadmill. It acts as the carrot and stick to keep people pushing.
The impact of this growth is that engineering manager roles have always been rare compared to the total number of jobs. Now that organization flattening has mostly taken shape and there are more staff+ engineers than ever, there is more competition for both paths.
The job security sweet spot
If you want the maximal job security and ability to move, you should stay a mid level or at most senior IC. It is a sweet spot. You are paid well, and there are a lot of roles out there that are highly desired. You are useful enough and cheap enough that you make up the backbone of the work core while not being too expensive to justify.
On Pay
There is a lot of discussion around pay differences between engineering managers and staff+ engineers. In reality, the money difference is not big enough to worry about. Moving companies will almost always have a larger impact on your compensation than your specific title.
I do need to acknowledge that staff+ engineers have an edge in being in a role for a long time that may push compensation higher due to organizational incentives. A leader who sets your compensation may only have one staff+ engineer who might even be the same level as that leader. In that situation, the leader may increase that engineer's compensation to the absolute limit to keep them. Meanwhile, the engineering leader is often one of many, and there are only so many high-tier comp packages to go around. Because of this, the staff+ engineer may end up being paid more than their own manager.
However, as your compensation goes up, the value you need to bring to the organization grows alongside it. You are always in a position of needing to prove you are worth that cost. This is the biggest impact on job security.
No matter what, your compensation is a target on your back. You need to justify what value you bring to an organization.
Planning vs Doing: staff+ engineers are often luxuries
Job security is a toss up. It depends on how much the organization thinks they need a staff+ engineer. A staff+ engineer is often a planner and not a doer. Anytime a person is a planner, whether IC or EM, they are no longer on the critical path. They can be laid off when an organization feels they don't need someone of that skill anymore, or when they decide that shipping less efficient solutions faster is better than shipping something high end. Most projects really just need a simple CRUD app. They don't actually need a staff+ engineer to do high end or novel work. A staff+ engineer is often a luxury, and those get cut first.
While engineering manager roles have gotten a lot of attention for being reduced and flattened, but lately I've seen more staff+ engineers get laid off now that the low hanging fruit of thinning the manager ranks have been done. There are factors against both roles and it is probably just based on luck and strategy of your specific organization.
The impact of LLMs
The impact of LLMs is the most difficult to predict. A good engineering manager should be able to use an LLM just as well as a staff+ engineer. You may argue that the staff+ engineer is going to be better, but many projects don't require that depth of skill.
In some ways, managing an LLM is like being an engineering manager. You need to have the right skillset to call out the tool when it is wrong. You may be able to be less respectful about it, but you still need to coach it in a direction just like a human. In this situation, a technically oriented and skilled manager should be able to drive the LLM reasonably well. They already have the skills needed to multi-task and move through multiple agents or review the work. While a staff+ engineer may get the same benefits in their ability to direct work, both jobs rely on clear communication.
If an engineer has the ability to be a staff+ engineer or an engineering manager, the title doesn't suddenly change their talent.
Choose what you enjoy
Rather than worrying about which role is safer or makes more money, I would argue they are pretty similar. Both roles are limited by business need, not by ability. Once you pass the senior engineer level, promotions and the ability to move between jobs is largely out of your control. You need to accept that sometimes you are limited by your environment unless you move to a startup or take a gamble.
The most critical thing to think about is what work you enjoy. Do you enjoy having direct influence over teams and primarily dealing with people to impact technology? Or do you enjoy dealing with technology first and delivering your impact through people and your influence?
Think more about which job you would prefer doing, as both jobs in the world of LLMs could be equally affected. Regardless of the path, do not lose touch with the technology. You often see staff+ engineers who hone soft skills, stop coding, and lose their technical edge. This happens to SDMs too. High level ICs are not immune to becoming paper engineers.
Focus on what really brings you joy and don't make these decisions out of fear. Once you are at this point, you're in the same boat anyways.