[Answering for myself only, though I’m in a similar position—was Principal Engineer at a FAANG for many years, recently moved to a late-stage startup in a VP-level IC role, with comp in the range that Gordon describes].
I think it’d take a lot to convince me that my comparative advantage in … the stuff described in the post (strategic tech decisions, with details down to coding and the tens of thousands of dumb little decisions that make a software product, and bridging the trust required by individual engineers and senior management) … is more valuable in an EA/Rationality org than a commercial software company.
Without some amount of market discipline and medium-term customer success indicators (denominated in dollars), I don’t think I can have the confidence and good instincts about what to change (and what to drop entirely) that make me valuable.
This is related to the discussion about how to spend EA money well—it’s not that it’s impossible to hire people, it’s that there aren’t enough well-understood projects to justify hiring expensive people. It’s not QUITE “you can’t afford me”, it’s more “you don’t have a model where you need me enough to hire me”.
Regarding “you don’t have a model where you need me enough to hire me”—may I ask if that’s something that an EA org (or several such orgs) have told you, or something you’re guessing?
Purely guessing. I haven’t seen any job postings or other indications that they have a large and confused enough software engineering organization to make good use of (what I think is my) main strengths.
I’ve recently changed jobs, so not looking for another change immediately, but I’d be happy to chat with execs of orgs that wonder if they need someone like me—generally that would be engineering orgs of 120-500, usually in 10-40 teams with multiple products and somewhat unaligned (heh) vision.
lol I resonate with the desire to get into a confused software engineering org and help bring order :) Though I am not an experienced manager like yourself
I’ll exit my user-research mode and just share that EA orgs currently have a hard time hiring devs, especially senior ones. My fairly-confident assumptions is that the devs simply don’t apply, but beyond some guesses, I wasn’t sure why. Both of you are sharing reasons which I read as mostly “the orgs are not a good fit for my skills—I’m better at managing ~100+ devs, not ~3”. First of all I’d like to thank you for sharing this—it’s helping me understand this unclear picture, so, like, this is an actual thank you. :)
I expect that the EA orgs would answer your concern with “Not enough people are applying, surely not very senior people. The alternative for you working with us is that we’ll have a dev with 1-2 years of experience, who is also, eh, not ideal for the position”. And also, “you will have a higher impact working with us, including if we pay you a ton of money, compared to donating 5X what you’d donate if you’d keep working at FAANG”. I don’t know if they’d actually say this, but it is my guess (I’m currently working on figuring out this field as you understand)
May I ask for your thoughts on this?
(Maybe as a person the orgs are trying to speak to, maybe as an advisor to me who is trying to make progress on the problem)
[Answering for myself only, though I’m in a similar position—was Principal Engineer at a FAANG for many years, recently moved to a late-stage startup in a VP-level IC role, with comp in the range that Gordon describes].
I think it’d take a lot to convince me that my comparative advantage in … the stuff described in the post (strategic tech decisions, with details down to coding and the tens of thousands of dumb little decisions that make a software product, and bridging the trust required by individual engineers and senior management) … is more valuable in an EA/Rationality org than a commercial software company.
Without some amount of market discipline and medium-term customer success indicators (denominated in dollars), I don’t think I can have the confidence and good instincts about what to change (and what to drop entirely) that make me valuable.
This is related to the discussion about how to spend EA money well—it’s not that it’s impossible to hire people, it’s that there aren’t enough well-understood projects to justify hiring expensive people. It’s not QUITE “you can’t afford me”, it’s more “you don’t have a model where you need me enough to hire me”.
(Thank you for joining in! <3)
Regarding “you don’t have a model where you need me enough to hire me”—may I ask if that’s something that an EA org (or several such orgs) have told you, or something you’re guessing?
Purely guessing. I haven’t seen any job postings or other indications that they have a large and confused enough software engineering organization to make good use of (what I think is my) main strengths.
I’ve recently changed jobs, so not looking for another change immediately, but I’d be happy to chat with execs of orgs that wonder if they need someone like me—generally that would be engineering orgs of 120-500, usually in 10-40 teams with multiple products and somewhat unaligned (heh) vision.
lol I resonate with the desire to get into a confused software engineering org and help bring order :) Though I am not an experienced manager like yourself
I’ll exit my user-research mode and just share that EA orgs currently have a hard time hiring devs, especially senior ones. My fairly-confident assumptions is that the devs simply don’t apply, but beyond some guesses, I wasn’t sure why. Both of you are sharing reasons which I read as mostly “the orgs are not a good fit for my skills—I’m better at managing ~100+ devs, not ~3”. First of all I’d like to thank you for sharing this—it’s helping me understand this unclear picture, so, like, this is an actual thank you. :)
I expect that the EA orgs would answer your concern with “Not enough people are applying, surely not very senior people. The alternative for you working with us is that we’ll have a dev with 1-2 years of experience, who is also, eh, not ideal for the position”. And also, “you will have a higher impact working with us, including if we pay you a ton of money, compared to donating 5X what you’d donate if you’d keep working at FAANG”. I don’t know if they’d actually say this, but it is my guess (I’m currently working on figuring out this field as you understand)
May I ask for your thoughts on this?
(Maybe as a person the orgs are trying to speak to, maybe as an advisor to me who is trying to make progress on the problem)