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If you're developer (Senior or Lead Developer) and you'd rather stay with code/design than pursue a management career, what are the available career paths at your company, or any you've heard of? How far can you go?

Is it possible to continue being a geek until you bite the dust or is that too naive?

Are people like Uncle Bob for example still considered developers, as they claim?

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This should not be Community Wiki. See: meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/8/… – Fishtoaster Sep 9 '10 at 0:18
Can't undo that.. if you can plz do :) – Shady M. Najib Sep 9 '10 at 0:24
Don't think anyone can yet (maybe when someone gets mod tools). Just for future reference. – Fishtoaster Sep 9 '10 at 0:59
@Fishtoaster: If you mean the mod tools I have for SO by having over 10K rep, no, I can't reverse CW. I think the dev team would have to do it. – David Thornley Oct 28 '10 at 21:11
No one short of the dev-team can un-cw something. However, recent changes to the whole of SE have been such that no one but a moderator can make things cw in the first place now. – Fishtoaster Oct 28 '10 at 21:18

13 Answers

up vote 17 down vote accepted

I am going to go out on a limb here and say something that is not likely to be the answer you want to hear, but if you don't like management, your career path is going to be very limited. If what you like to do is code, and if you are really good at it, and you don't want to stop, then your career path is on a single trajectory: software engineer and then senior software engineer.

If others recognize how good you are then their inclination will tend towards putting you in a position where you can transmit your experience to others. In other words, they will want you to manage and/or direct. It is hard to take on that added responsibility without taking on some form of management. If you are an architect and responsible for a system's design, and if you want that design to be successfully implemented, you will need to lead and manage others. If you become a founder of a start-up and you become successful, then chances are at some point you will need to hire someone to help, and then you will need to manage them. If you become a CTO then there is no way in hell you will be able to not manage.

That being said, I don't think this question can be answered without understanding what it is about management you don't like. Do you not like managing personnel? Do you not like the idea of coding not being your primary responsibility? Do you not like the burden of responsibility for something's success?

The answer to that underlying question will help point you in the right direction. Or to put in another way, a way we should all be thinking about the work we do, is this: what does your ideal job look like? Forget about titles for a second, forget about the company you work for, just focus on your day-to-day life, and those things that will make you truly happy and thrive. Then work to create that position at the place you work, or at a company you build yourself.

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up vote -2 down vote

If you don't like management you should get in to management to change things and make it acceptable to like-minded individuals.

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2  
There are limits to do things you don't like, and when those things include managing people, it is really not recommended IMHO. – Matthieu Dec 7 '11 at 19:50
Life's too short for that. – Brian Knoblauch Mar 8 '12 at 16:52
up vote 1 down vote

Always remember that you can take another path and become a software consultant.. You can also work on other projects in parallel like writing some books or working in a blog...

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up vote 15 down vote

Depends on the sort of company you work for.

Many companies don't value talented, experienced developers as highly as managers, and will never reward them to the same level <- This is not the sort of company people like you should be working for.

Other (usually more tech-focused) companies will value their developers more, and staying in technology should not limit your career in terms of reward and status <- you probably want to work for this sort of company.

If you have a bit of entrepreneurial spirit you could also start your own company - then you'd be the boss.

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up vote 4 down vote

Probably something like this:

Jr Developer -> Developer -> Sr Developer / Team Leader / Lead Developer -> Software Architect

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up vote 8 down vote

FWIW, Microsoft (like other large companies, I'm sure) has career paths for non-managers that go to VP equivalent levels (Distinghished Engineer and Technical Fellow). MS is really big on showing a career path for non-managers.

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3  
so far, all large companies I've been with don't have a career path for engineers unless you a) have been with them for the vast majority of your career or b) want to go into management. MS is just a pipe dream for the overwhelming majority of us – geocoin Oct 26 '10 at 9:28
up vote 3 down vote

If you work for a small company being a developer may be the highest role unless you start your own company. You will then become a Developer/Director. Don't worry too much about reaching the highest technical role in a company. Just do what makes you happy.

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up vote 2 down vote

There's several paths I've seen taken by I know:

  1. Product Manager
  2. Requirements Analyst
  3. Architect
  4. Team Lead
  5. Configuration Manager
  6. Technical Writer
  7. Start-up Founder
  8. Grant Writer
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Grant writer? What that supposed to be doing? – Shady M. Najib Sep 9 '10 at 18:41
Technical writer!! At my company technical writers are more or less those ppl who write user guides & similar stuff.. is that what you meant? – Shady M. Najib Sep 9 '10 at 18:43
There are a ton of crazy ideas that are available for funding by the US government which are accessible to those who can write a semi-technical proposal. You still have to be somewhat technically proficient. – wheaties Sep 9 '10 at 18:55
+1 for startup founder. – geocoin Oct 26 '10 at 9:30
2  
@Shady - yes, they write documentation and technical reports, etc. It is a difficult task and requires a high skill level as you must understand all the languages and technologies to be able to extract the usage scenarios, error handling, etc.. which is all documented by the programmers, right? :-P – JBRWilkinson Oct 28 '10 at 13:23
up vote 4 down vote

Contracting. There's far more money in freelance work.

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But can't you see any career path in the same place? – Shady M. Najib Sep 9 '10 at 18:44
1  
Unless you are lucky enough to work for google, thoughtworks or a smaller company with similar values. No. All roads lead to non-programming architect, not somewhere I want to be – Ryan Roberts Sep 12 '10 at 12:24
2  
Contractors can command a high salary for being very good at something very specific, unless their specialist technology is widespread, in which case their cost helps them absorb short notice periods. – JBRWilkinson Oct 28 '10 at 13:26
up vote 1 down vote

there are many titles that are found in a programmers path if he stick to technical career, such as

  • Lead Developer / Lead Development Engineer.
  • Team Leader.
  • Solution Architect (focused on system design and integration, etc.).
  • CTO (Chief technology Officer) .. this is totally technical but with a spice of being top technical person in the Organization.
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Not sure what CTOs you've met, but none of the few I've met actually do much of anything technical anymore... Seems to be the title that IT Managers who carry iPads end up with. If you're an IT Manager who's fighting against iPads, then you get the CIO title. ;-) – Brian Knoblauch Mar 8 '12 at 16:54
up vote 13 down vote

Although Architect seems to have negative connotations, I think that's the technical equivalent of moving to management.

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1  
An architect doesn't necessary manage people or a project, so it's not always a management move. Our software architects are the people who are very good at working out the best architectures for our projects. – JBRWilkinson Oct 28 '10 at 13:28
@JBRWilkinson I'm not exactly looking for a management path (as a matter of fact I looking for anything but it :D).. I'm just asking for a reasonable "appreciation" for one's experience (financially & else), a career path not another way to be "technical" management :) – Shady M. Najib Nov 7 '10 at 7:50
up vote 11 down vote

At my company, the management and individual contributor tracks are separate and mostly parallel. Individual contributors can rise very high in the company (up to Technical Fellow) without being a people manager. It helps to partially avoid the Peter Principle, though never completely.

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up vote 3 down vote

Depends on the company. A lot of companies offer two paths for advancing developers: technical and management. If you prefer technical, you move slowly up the pay grade, developing valuable dev skills, but sticking with development- you become a guru. It's less money than going management, but if you want to hack 'till you die, it's the way to go.

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Still I wanna know what sort of titles/responsibilities/positions that might be available? – Shady M. Najib Sep 9 '10 at 0:21
Where I worked, you would get the same Title i.e. "Manager", but your roles and responsibilities would be of an Architect rather than a people / project manager. Though I have seen this last only till Sr. Manager - never seen a Director or Vice President coding ! – Preets Sep 9 '10 at 13:55
@Preets: I have :) – talonx Sep 26 '10 at 17:26
@talonx, I was obviously working at the wrong firm then ;) – Preets Sep 28 '10 at 14:42

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