A reader asked me a question: "I am 35 years old this year. I work as an architect for a group buying network and do distributed storage. I also bring two or three seniors to follow me. The leader recently talked to me and wanted me to be a department manager, but I just like programming and doing architecture, but I don’t like managing people, and I can’t manage well, so what should I do?”
I replied to him: "This is a very typical "skills and excellent skills make you an official". First of all, you have never done management, how do you know that you are not good at it? Maybe you like it after doing it. Besides, the company provides If you have a chance, you might as well give it a try. If you can’t do well in management, you’ll come back to be an architect at worst. Technical management is not to completely lose technology, but to do less coding. However, technical management has a great impact on technical planning, architecture review, team management, etc. Ability requirements are higher.”
Sort out this kind of question a little bit: Does not do technical management at the age of 30 mean failure? If you don't do management, how will you go about your career path later?
It is normal to fail to achieve a technical management position at the age of 30, and it is not something to worry about
According to the 2019 statistics of a hook recruitment website, 30-year-old personnel engaged in technology development accounted for 67.4%, and those engaged in technical management accounted for 32.6%. It can be seen that nearly 70% of technical personnel are still engaged in front-line technical work at the age of 30 .
The same data from a hook.com shows that 30-year-olds who have not engaged in technical management positions have about 30% higher chances of getting an offer in the talent market than all IT practitioners. Expensive" and "996", both large and small companies welcome them very much.
It is more difficult for most technicians to switch to management because of "less pits", low mobility, and high requirements.
An undeniable fact is that it is more difficult for most technicians to switch to management, and there are few "pitfalls" in technical management. Taking a small vertical business line department with 20 people as an example, there is only one technical manager, and about two backup managers, that is, team leaders. If the spare tire wants to become a full-time employee, unless the manager is promoted or the manager leaves.
The mobility of technical management positions will be relatively low. Just imagine, it will take at least two or three years if you are in charge of a team from 0 to making achievements. Technical management personnel will not leave easily unless it is really impossible. As for the company, the person in charge will not be changed casually. After all, this position affects ten or twenty people, unless the job is really bad.
The technical management position itself has high requirements for technical ability, architectural ability, communication ability and coordination ability, which are difficult for ordinary technical personnel to meet in a short period of time.
At the age of 30, I have not taken a technical management position, what are the options for my career path in the future?
There are many options for a technical career path besides technical management positions. Here are 4 common options:
First, I feel that I am not ready, so I first accumulate technology and then upgrade to technical management.
For programmers, the transfer of technology to management is a natural thing. First lay a solid technical foundation, and then go to management, so that the road of management can go further, and the promotion of seedlings will be promoted, and future career development will also be restricted.
Xiao Zhang is such a living example. Xiao Zhang is an expert in recommendation engines. He helped the company build a recommendation engine technology platform from 0 to 1, and collaborated very smoothly with products, development, and testing. At this time, the company plans to promote him as a technical manager, responsible for the product development of the recommendation engine platform.
After careful consideration, Xiao Zhang declined this opportunity. He believed that his technical strength and accumulation in all aspects were not enough to undertake the technical management work, so he decided to continue to improve in his current position for a period of time.
In other words, even if Xiao Zhang did not become a technical manager, the company has already listed him as a key training target, and his room for improvement is unlimited.
Second, continue to improve technically and become an expert or architect in a certain field.
Whether you become a manager or a technical expert depends largely on your "work values". The University of Minnesota, which is the university where Liu Qiangdong met a female classmate, two of the scholars, Rene V. Dawis and Lloyd H. Lofquist, have a research result: Work Adjustment Theory (Work Adjustment Theory), which puts "work values "Subdivided into 6 dimensions:
Achievement: How do you feel about your job satisfaction;
Comfort: Do you value a stable and comfortable job;
Status: whether you seek promotion to become a manager;
Altruism: Do you want to do a job helping others;
Sense of security: Do you want the company to be more transparent and treat people equally;
Autonomy: Do you want more space to play freely.
The degree of attention to these factors determines the direction of career development, such as:
• How do you feel about your sense of accomplishment? Is it better to solve technical problems by yourself? Or is it more enjoyable to watch the young people you promote build great products together?
• Do you seek promotion, do you enjoy managing people?
• Would you like greater autonomy? In general, being an expert has more autonomy than being a leader. Because many company leaders are overwhelmed by the tasks of their superiors, and their subordinates also need to take care of themselves, the space for independent decision-making is not as large as imagined.
You may wish to use the "job adaptation theory" as a thinking framework to rethink your career development direction, and don't blindly follow the public's value judgments, thinking that only by doing technical management can you reach the pinnacle of life.
Third, choose to change careers and stop fighting with technology.
Technology transfers can usually be transferred to products and businesses. Inside Tencent, most of the product managers have a technical background. After graduation, they enter Tencent and do two or three years of development first. Students who are interested in products will transfer to work on products.
Chen Xiaofei is an example of technology transfer to products. After graduation, she has been engaged in front-end development. After working for a year, her product sensitivity has gradually emerged. She often discusses with product managers the design logic behind the product, application scenarios and user pain points.
The product manager joked with her, you are very product thinking, do you want to consider changing to a product manager?
A sentence that seemed to be a joke, but Chen Xiaofei kept it in her heart, and she never forgot it, and there must be echoes. After her own efforts, Chen Xiaofei finally passed the job transfer interview and became a product manager.
Regarding changing careers, there are countless days beyond the three realms. I have people who have switched from technology to rock and roll, become Internet celebrity screenwriters, wrote self-media and become big Vs, and opened hotels in Dali. In a word: it doesn't matter what you do, just follow your heart.
Fourth, technological entrepreneurship opens up a new world
If you have accumulated enough depth in a certain technical field and have the opportunity to contact some potential customers, technology entrepreneurship is a good choice, and there are many such examples around the author.
Liu Hang, a cloud platform technical expert, is well-known in the technology circle. He often shares his technical experience in major technical forums, and also uses weekends to solve technical problems in other companies. After careful thinking, Liu Hang decided to resign and start a business , set up a cloud technology service company to help enterprises solve the problems of going to the cloud, and provide technical cloud suite products. The company is operating well.
Engaging in technical management and becoming a technical director or CTO is nothing more than being famous and earning more money, but this is not the only criterion for success in the technical workplace. Many technical media worship technology management too much, and spread anxiety with the argument that "if you don't do technology management, you will fail", as if you should reflect on your life before you do technology management at the age of 30.
Although there is no difference between a person without a dream and a salted fish, it does not mean that a 30-year-old is a salted fish without management. Everyone’s career development path is different, and there are many determinants. Writing programs in Silicon Valley until the age of 60 Technologists still enjoy a high status and are equally respected.
The above content is excerpted from the best-selling book "The Way of Technical People's Cultivation", the author Huang Zhekeng, who once served as the technical director of Yihaodian, the vice president of technology of Yiyao. Internet large-scale system research and development, large-scale technical team governance, blockchain innovation, etc.
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