Welcome to Tech Management Slim - Part 1/2

In technology, there typically have been two fundamental career paths. The “IC” or individual contributor path or management path and you would pick one. Climbing the ranks I picked one before but luckily [or unlucky] depending on how you look at the equation depending on firms the sands are shifting. My experience with managers has changed throughout my career and finally, I am one. Like they say you don’t work for a company, you work for a manger.

Early Managers in my life

For professional job-wise, I was lucky to intern at IBM in the mid-2000’s for all of my college career. I spent several semesters at IBM on different teams. At IBM I was on software engineering teams. My managers there who I reported to had a clear management structure and I was between 7 and 8 levels separated from the CEO. Typically a software engineering manager at IBM was a software engineer at some time and teams that I was on they managed between 10-20 software engineers. My managers most likely did not write code in their day to day activity but was like a mini product and people manager for the features we would develop. My direction came directly from my people managers. I rotated around several teams at IBM then I graduated in the middle of a recession.

With the economy in the middle of a recession, I ended up getting a contracting gig at Equifax before returning to IBM full time. This was the first time I was exposed to a “professional manager”. I was on a professional services team so first time dealing with a more matrix structure. I took more direction from the project managers on the projects I was on vs my people manager which I did not. My people manager was not technical and I doubt had experience in the product, platform, and technologies that we were dealing with. For my self, I really respect managers as leaders if they are the ability to lead and guide in situations, especially as a young employee. The experience was not bad but was different from my IBM experience.

Consulting Years

I finally returned to IBM as a consultant working on client-facing development projects. Technical consulting was my life for the next five years or so climbing the ranks from analyst to consultant to then a senior consultant. At IBM then Deloitte, your life centers around your project and at times you forget you have a people manager. IBM wise, my people manager was also in consulting and he was on projects. At Deloitte, a big four firm, we had a partner model that I was staff then senior staff under a partner but typically worked for another partner. Similar would live and die by which projects you were on. I was fortunate I got promoted to Senior Consultant as was on a prominent project for the firm. I was a team lead at an investment bank and effectively an application owner. I recently got a trip to the greater NYC Area to teach a new HarnessU class next to where my leadership started to build ever so slightly [the pic above].

As a Team Lead, lead technical direction and responsibility. During prod outages, would put on the fireman hat to put out those fires!

It was funny as a team lead, I took on ownership of the application and here were the fundamentals of being a higher ranking IC started to form.

Manager or Specialist

Deloitte would certainly dangle that carrot to become a PPD [Partner, Principal, Director] in the firm. Though out of every 1000 or so consultants, probably only a handful will make PPD. As an up and out model, my next step in the firm was manager. As a manager, I would not have the ability to be a software engineer anymore, which would be too expensive for clients. So my technical ability would become way less valuable. Deloitte. My career counselor [like your career buddy] at Deloitte was making a case for me to go to a specialist career track which is mostly IC. I was not in consulting to specialist out so after some time left and went to other firms.

Pre-Sales Days

After I left consulting I went into Pre-Sales as an architect for the next 5 years of my career. Very fortunate Red Hat gave me a break. Management wise I reported to a pre-sales manager who certainly was technical and managed the East Coast for JBoss. Back to the feeling that my manager has been in the trenches. Though being in sales, management does shift around fast and comes in many forms.

After a few years at Red Hat, I went to the startup game with Sonatype and my first Principal level job as an architect. As a Principal at Sonatype, I reported to the top [not unusual for a startup] and this was really intoxicating. There was a possibility for the first time in my career to shape a business and one day have a team. Having the feeling to have an impact was great. Though we did not really have an architecture team and issues that a manager that if we had one aligned to would solve. Thus I left Sonatype for Mesosphere with a proper architect manager.

I went to one more startup, Mesosphere, as a Principal Architect again. We had a great pre-sales management structure and the pre-sales managers ticked all the boxes. They were player-coaches meaning they had quota-carrying responsibility. I really respected the management chain and they invested in training and growth for us. The economics of a start-up enterprise tech can be a wild ride and Mesosphere was not doing too hot so went back to big software.

Evangelizing Days

I got my break into evangelism with AppDynamics which was recently then acquired by Cisco. Gave a funny talk at DevOps Days ATL on behalf of Mesosphere and here I was. At startups like banks, everyone might have a title of grandeur because startups are small. I entered Cisco as a G12 employee which is a Senior Manager / Tech Leader 2. Even though I was an IC, I was finally at a level that higher than my mangers at IBM during my intern days. I started to feel upward momentum in Corporate America w00t! Though spent a year doing Evangelism activities. I did really miss the impact you have at startup and like any rank-and-file job was hard to see a way to move up. I had a management title yet no opportunity to build a team / greater impact.

One day out of the blue I got a call from my current boss here at Harness. We had an awesome talk and asked me what I wanted. Being an evangelist is certainly a job of privilege.

A few of us trying out the idea of HarnessU. Had the feels for NYC and remised about my time at the investment bank across the street where I spent a few years.

I wanted to build a team and have an impact. Fast forward to today, very fortunate to have my first hire on the Harness Evangelist Team.

Part 2/2?

In part 2 I will go into what I believe a good manager to be and how I strive to improve always. Now, going along the journey as a legitimate people manager. Since there are only two of us [so a person manager ha!] very much a player-coach as we have some lofty goals in FY21. Stay tuned for some philosophies I have as I learn, adjust, and serve.

Cheers!

-Ravi