> My 2c on being in engineering leadership is that it’s best to think of yourself as a manger without authority, rather than thinking of yourself as an engineer with authority.
Im a principal at AWS. A coworker made a joke that resonated with me; a principal engineer is a manager without direct reports.
My job is twofold. Helping managers understand where to go. Helping ICs and teams to get there. I have no inherent authority and it all comes down to trust and influence.
Not as much as Id like. But that generally comes down to prioritization and the broad autonomy & area of responsibility in these roles. The self reported survey data of time spent is that principals are doing direct delivery 12% of the time median and 20% average.
That said there does seem to be a push to reemphasize the ‘exemplary practitioner’ aspect and scale back on the high level “architecture” and pseudo PM aspects that creep in with expanded scope.
Thanks. I really appreciate the reply. It matches with what I thought might be the case. I've taken on a more senior role lately as my career progresses and I'm finding I'm spending only half my time doing direct delivery and the other half doing project management type work and coordinating changes across teams etc. I love the autonomy that comes along with it but I'm so used to the idea of getting paid to cut code that when I don't cut as much as I used to I feel like I'm not keeping up. Reality is I'm busy with other stuff and I'm learning to just accept that more and start to lean into it.
You’re welcome. My advice would be to keep the development up, but focus your efforts where they make the most difference. When it comes to grinding LOC, and even defining entire components, that’s what you have a team for. Trust them to do the needful, or intentionally lead by example until they can. Spend your dev time discovering/removing the complexity or laying the groundwork for the bulk of development to follow.
Im a principal at AWS. A coworker made a joke that resonated with me; a principal engineer is a manager without direct reports.
My job is twofold. Helping managers understand where to go. Helping ICs and teams to get there. I have no inherent authority and it all comes down to trust and influence.