You have a brilliant senior engineer on your team, and you’re encouraging them to pursue promotion along a technical track instead of a management track because, well, they’re not that great with people.
Warning! That can be just as big a disaster as moving them into management.
Sure, there are plenty of good reasons an engineer will want to stay on the technical track instead of moving into management. But poor people skills isn’t one of them.
Senior engineers often excel at doing amazing work independently. But when moving into a staff engineer or higher technical role, that independence starts to wane. Empathy, collaboration, and yes, even politics start to become important skills when accepting even a technical responsibility that spans teams and projects.
If you’re ready for your senior engineer to grow into greater roles, here are some ways you can help prepare them.
1️⃣ Look for maturity markers. Recognize when they show interest in people, not just systems, when they anticipate cross-team impacts, when they seek input from other people and departments.
2️⃣ Give them stretch assignments that develop an internal identity that cares about the success of others. Have them lead ambitious cross-team initiatives, mentor others, and own outcomes that depend on the participation and success of people they don’t manager.
3️⃣ Nudge them toward specific growth. Redirect them when they focus only on their personal goals and outcomes. Ask them who else is succeeding as a result of their work. Celebrate when other people excel as a result of their input.
Advancing along a technical track involves much more than just bigger systems, broader scope, more autonomy. It also requires an internal identity shift that moves from personal success with technical projects to creating conditions for the success of others out of genuine care and empathy.
If you’d like to explore a specific opportunity for growth on a technical track, let’s talk. Visit stevedwire.com/talk to start the conversation.
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