Promotion Or Job Change: Which Is the Best Way To Advance In IT? 247
I've had a couple of management consultants tell me that if you want to move into management, it's better to change jobs or change where you work within your current company than to stay where you are. What if you have to fire one of your old friends? Not cool. Or are you better off starting your management career surrounded by people who know and (hopefully) like you? Read the rest .
Re:Job Change (Score:5, Informative)
If you have to ask, you need to move job. Although my yearly reviews and bonuses are in the top 10% for my pay grade, I was having trouble getting promoted for political reasons. I could maybe accept their promise of 'it will happen in 2012', but since they've spent the last year hiring a tonne of people in the grade above me, my prestige has been lowered.
So, I just handed in my resignation. The gaping whole I am leaving has my former employer in a bit of a bind now, since I was the last person with the knowledge and skills to support a key system. They have offered to promote me now, but it's too late.
I will earn more than double as an IT contractor at a competitor, so that is what I'm lined up to do. I've seen the other side and the grass is definitely greener.
When I'm ready to go back to being permanent in the next year or two, I will automatically get that grade and set of responsibilities as well as a much bigger pay-packet. It's a no-brainer.
Re:Job Change (Score:3, Informative)
I'm thinking of how non-IT organizations handle this. I'm also looking at it from the viewpoint of your employers. One group I can think of is the military, where the ideal is to progress within your existing unit. On the other hand, I think of the Michigan State Police where they automatically include a location transfer with a promotion. The argument for the former is that it helps unit cohesion; for the latter is that its difficult to be a supervisor over people you've worked with. Like most things, there's an element of truth in each.
Unit cohesion isn't a big deal in most IT organizations, so that argument really doesn't apply. A big question is would this promotion put you in the position of supervising your former co-workers? If not, then you can dismiss the latter argument.
Other factors would be the stability and health of both companies. If you're leaving a stable place to take a shot at a place about to go into bankruptcy, why not just go to the casino and bet your career on red. Loyalty, in either direction, is the first thing to go. It boils down to what is best for you. Chances are you'll go faster and farther if you move.
Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers (Score:4, Informative)
Does it mean not giving examples?
Here, let me help you with some examples where technical advancement does not imply moving into management: Programmer/code monkey > Entry Level Software Engineer > Sr. Software Engineer/Tech Lead > Software/Systems* Architect > Principal Engineer/Architect of a major engineering project.
Obviously, each technical advancement *must* entail some type of managerial skills as you will be expected to lead, mentor and delegate junior members under your belt while performing technical tasks that you possess via your extensive expertise. But that is not management proper (as in a pure definition.) Besides management runs the spectrum - you don't need to be a manager you to "own" a particular responsibility, and if you have to work with peers and juniors while supporting the section of the system that you "own", you have to displays implicit management skills. Otherwise, you will suck at it from a technical point of view.
To be technical does not mean having to do anything but l33t hax0r mayhem in complete isolation. Engineering does not work that way. * and by Systems Architect, I don't mean the guy who lays out the hardware (which is how we typically use the term in IT), but one who has an architectural role in the realm of Systems Engineering [wikipedia.org].
Change jobs (Score:5, Informative)
I'm 33, and I've worked for a single large aerospace company since getting my undergrad degree 11 years ago. I started off as a desktop support guy making $42k, and then was bumped to $43k after a year, then to $45k after another year, then to $46k after another year. In late 2004 I was promoted to junior sysadmin and was bumped to $50k, and through yearly raises got that up to $55k by 2006, when I transferred formally from sysadmin to the enterprise architect side of the house. That got me a bump to $68k, which brought me up to the minimum salary level for that position, and then between 2006 and mid-2010 the pay rose to $74k through those yearly incremental raises.
In 2010 I was a senior architect, making decisions that directly affected the technology direction of a Fortune 50 company with $65B in revenue, making $74k a year. It was nice, of course, and the job was fun, but the compensation just hadn't scaled to the job. There were other benefits--outstanding and near-zero-cost insurance, stock, a functioning pension program, and as near a thing to stability as it's possible to get in an American job--but I wanted more money, so I left. Now I work as a presales engineer (that's "engineer," not real engineer) at one of the same vendors that used to sell to me, making $120k. I would have had to stay at the first job for another 20 years to hit the same level of salary. More, I left on excellent terms, and I wouldn't mind going back there some day.
This experience echoes that of my much-older peers at the aerospace job, where I was one of the only folks in the group less than 50 years old. All of them, without exception, had left at some point for between 1-5 years and then come back, bringing with them a large salary bump. Even in a company that gives you near-guaranteed 2-5% incremental raises, the only way to get a massive salary increase is by leaving.
Re:Not even sure why people want to be managers (Score:2, Informative)
Many companies do this. I am an engineer on the management pay scale.
Too many people with the "senior engineer" title were leaving because there was no where to go. Now an engineer can go to manager level, senior manager, director and even get all the way up to VP level pay, bonuses and stock options while remaining an engineer. It's not common, but we have a few at VP level. They have been here a LONG time and know our systems inside and out. Of course, they designed a lot of those systems.
You can keep a lot of good engineering talent this way. Kept me here.