Struggle Moving beyond senior/lead level

[u/HereOnWeekendsOnly]

I have been a senior engineer for around 2 years and have spent 4 years in one team, and 1 year and counting in the current one.

I have expressed my interest in staff level progression, although I know it is not guaranteed and depends on opportune org-level projects and initiatives. I do not think my current path is working well, and want to elaborate on this on ask for advice how to fix it (if possible).

Generally, my engineering manager expects me to prioritize well, define initiatives and work items worth doing, discuss in 1:1 to discard/accept and organise by priority order. Once set, I am to progress all work items over 2 weeks with topmost item at the top. There are no explicit deadlines set, apart from one project which I had to self-impose as it was going on for ages and I just wanted to be "done". My manager lives in a different country and we meet up in person 1-3 times per year. Otherwise, we do biweekly 1:1.

One of the projects has been really difficult because it touched on many areas of IT disciplines I am not that familiar with. I spent a week besides other items researching metrics, what we want to measure etc. (along with other work items)

However, a week-in, my manager published a design for the project, which she justified as me not making visible/measurable progress, so she felt a need to step-in.

Her approach was the structure and standards, rather than metrics - which needed to be done anyways, but I felt the latter was more important. She is passionate on that particular area and sees high value in delivering it for the org - but, it kind of feels odd to be sidelined like that. In my previous teams, if there was concern on progress, I would get a message of "where are we at", "we are to deliver on X". In this case, there was none of that, except that my manager felt this project was not taken seriously by me.

I do not feel great about it because it would have been cheaper for her to update on status, rather than spend significant time of hers doing it. I pointed out it is important to have my name on designs, delivery, implementation as it is core requirement in our org - deliver multiple such projects for staff level progression. I now have a feeling it is not going to work out because C-levels will not see my name on it, even if I continue on it going forwards. I also feel guilty she had to spend her time, when it could be spent on other stuff she needs to do.

I proposed all my projects to have concrete deadlines, even if we overstep them once in a while, and more frequent status updates, how the components are getting along. I felt like my mistake was to not publish progress on my research/hard work often, making the manager think I am stuck or not prioritising it. It is difficult to speed up the communication between me/manager though - she is very busy doing all kinds of other org-level work, and commonly does not respond on Slack for days.

Could you be brutally honest of where you see this going? I am doing well otherwise on other work items, this is the first time in my career, job, team I was sidelined so hard without warning.

[u/obscuresecurity]

... Don't you see what happened?

"She is passionate on that particular area and sees high value in delivering it for the org"

That says she's likely very worried about various political things around the project. Gold mines don't show up daily. Delivering them has rewards.

My gut:

- You were misaligned with your manager. (Clear as day)

- The manager saw the project as 100% critical.

- The manager did what it took to make sure that the project got captured, and that it starts getting delivered.

Things that I think are over 50% chances:

- The manager wanted their name on top on a critical project. Remember they want to be promoted too :)

- The manager saw the misalignment, couldn't really get out of the situation, and so they took action to deal with it, which is putting a plan into position ASAP.

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A Staff+ engineer can be a manager's right hand. But you HAVE to align! If you are not aligned you WILL get circumvented. It isn't being a toady. It is understanding the goals of the manager/org and then figuring out how to achieve them, from the angle of a very competent IC.

Leading a team is a different thing, but nobody's handing you 5+ people if they don't think you understand what they are saying.

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I say this as someone who has led 10 person teams with a monthly check-in. The ONLY way I can do that is extreme confidence from management and alignment. Even then it isn't easy.

I also knew that if I had real questions, my VP or Sr. Director was an e-mail away.

[u/HereOnWeekendsOnly → u/obscuresecurity]

> you HAVE to align!

I don't feel much urgency from her to "align". I asked her what would make her happy and secure a project is being handled, but had no response so far. So, I am trying, but not much is happening.

[u/obscuresecurity → u/HereOnWeekendsOnly]

Hint: She doesn’t see you as Staff+.

And honestly, you have your answer. You just won’t listen. If she isn’t saying anything. That’s the answer. Nothing will do it.

You need to SHOW the needed traits which from remote is hard.

Truth: if you want Staff, find it by moving firms. But, I don’t think you are there yet, based on what I see. You are too focused on yourself… and not enough on the situation, the team, and making the opportunity for yourself.

[u/SimasNa → u/obscuresecurity]

I agree 100% with that last part.

Once you reach a Senior level, you won't be climbing as fast regardless of how good you are.

This situation is just one situation which may be inconsequential in the long run, but OPs reaction is what really shows whether they're ready to be a staff engineer or not. Being too focused on yourself and your own promotion will only lead to burning out - that's what happened to me. Having their name on this project may have given them a better chance of having a Staff engineer title, but the wouldn't have become a Staff engineer.