Scope and Impact

I am a senior engineer at Zocdoc. With the exception of brief jaunt into management in 2014, I have also always been an individual contributor. What makes me senior? My title, but that is relatively meaningless. I have seen ineffective engineering leaders who have had the title. So what is it? What qualifies me for my role? Or more generally, what makes an individual contributor ready for a promotion to a senior role?

From what I have seen for the first level of management promotions are often battlefield. The size of an organization dictates a reasonable number of managers and if they are all filled than progressing onto that track can be challenging. This also applies to more senior levels; for an engineering team of 20 people you don't need 5 directors. However, there are precipitating events that require a new manager on a quick timetable. Most often this is another manager leaving, but this could also be the team growing to a critical mass where its current structure no longer makes sense. Ultimately, you either hire or promote from within and hiring takes time. This can also be true at more senior levels; a vacuum of power can mean promotion.

On the individual contributor track that is much less true. Though the team growing likely means you need more senior engineers, companies are less likley to elevate a inexperienced individual contributor to a senior role than they are an inexperienced manager. Since there is no distinct event where it is clear you need a higher level individual contributor what is the impetus for a promotion?

This is top of mind because I recently was asked to give feedback on a promotion case for one of my collegues to a very senior indidual contributor role which made me confront this very question. Your company might have a definition for each role and a rubric for identifying the attributes of each role, but by and large these are directional at best. Often the exact boundaries of each role are ill defined and it's down to luck more than anything. Did you happen to work on the cash cow or a favored project? Do you happen to have a good manager (preferably with some clout)?

I decided that in my case for any role my guiding principles are scope and impact. An ineffective engineering leader can be given scope via title, but they will be unable to have a positive impact on the organization. For an individual contributor scope is what pieces of the codebase or projects that they own and how effective are they at pushing them forward. The more senior an individual contributor is the wider their scope and impact. A junior developer likely only has scope and impact on their direct work; the tickets on the project they have in a given sprint. More experienced developer's scope increases from their tickets to projects, their team, multiple teams, and finally the entire organization. And while this is still as wishy-washy as everything else, it is at least a lens for me to focus my thoughts on a given individuals performance over time.