We have always learnt about the multiple career paths in IT, especially in software engineering/development. But did we ever imagine in a dynamic industry like this, what gaps could/would creep in silently and impact the very culture of teams, departments and firms? Let's look at the career paths first and then will quickly talk about the gaps.
Management path involves people development, line management, coaching, performance management, project management, budgeting and a lot more; this path typically starts after one has spent a few years in junior/senior roles, have an understanding of how teams deliver work and then a professional makes a choice (or is forced due to circumstances or under influence) to pursue management.
Technical path involves growing into senior engineer, technical lead, staff engineer, architect and similar roles over time.
And then of course the new path i.e. Hybrid - that has roles like Engineering manager, Technical manager every since IT companies starting asking managerial roles to be more hands-on (without thinking about its impact or success rate).
Let me talk about the gaps that I am seeing as critical (or becoming worrisome) for past few years. This relates to some behaviors that I have noticed in past few years in multiple organizations and relates to technical path, the following are only few examples or behaviors:
Engineers only focused on their individual contribution, not sharing anything much in teams or outside team (this might appear like a behavior that has always been there, but I feel it is a bit compounded in past few years)
Engineers who are high headed and tend to shrug off others (there are always a few in every team, at least one - in my experience :-))
Senior Engineers / Tech leads (at least 10 years+ experienced) being immature in their oral and written communications e.g. not considering what impact their words or gestures may have
Engineers at all levels (juniors, seniors, leaders) not joining meetings on time :-), yes, this happens more often than we think it does; including engineers not opening their meeting codes on time while interviewing candidates (i.e. making candidates wait)
Engineers growing into tech leads/engineering managers with line management however not having an eye for observing individual or team behaviors and too focused on just the technical stuff (guess who loses out - everyone)
Engineering leaders (managers, VPs & more) losing touch of technical reality due to not being hands-on for some time but make up by being good people leaders OR in some cases, being forced to be hands-on/coding, so not able to properly focus on people aspects (basically, a mix up)
I can go on, but I would take a pause here, because these are just my observations and not necessarily what anyone else may have seen in the technical paths. These observations made me ponder about why this is happening (in pockets or in plenty), because this neither looks healthy nor it is something that I would want the next generation to follow.
In my humble view, I felt the following could be some of the reasons (and I am not talking of generation gap here), there would surely be a lot more to it:
Engineers not receiving adequate direction in their careers that it is not just producing software (the 'what' part of work), but also behaviors and maturity (the 'how' part of work) that matters
A culture of not troubling 'technically strong engineers', worrying they will leave :-) (and letting work environment get toxic)
Performance assessments that emphasize that only technical delivery matters, behaviors do not matter 'as much' comparatively
Lack of gut in line managers and leaders to take 'tough calls', to coach others, even if it's difficult
Again, I would take a pause here, but one thing that clearly stands out to me in this assessment is that while technical delivery happens, individual contributors do their work, teams deliver.. but people don't grow in stature, team's don't gain emotional intelligence.
Does all of this come down to just the leader of the team / project / department (stuff like this does not happen in a day, it builds over time)?. May be I am wrong, but if the leader is not focusing enough on the soft aspects (not just technical aspects), how would a correction happen? And if leaders/managers are thrown into coding left right center, who will take care of the softer issues, AI?
I would appreciate if anyone could share their experiences, suggestions or any comments.
Thanks for reading.
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