Weighing Career Growth vs. Staying near the core product of the company

Question

I’ve been offered an engineering manager role at my current company to lead a new Dev Security team, moving from my current position as a senior software engineer on the core Payments product team. This opportunity arose due to my contributions to security initiatives within the organization. I really enjoy working within my current domain, starting to contribute cross-organizationally, and see a long-term potential here, but promotions within this organization are a lot more difficult to achieve, making the career advancement of this new role particularly enticing. Having been in my current role for nearly two years, I’ve built strong relationships with my skip-level manager and leadership, which I’d need to rebuild in the new role. While I’m intrigued by security, I’m hesitant to shift away from the company’s core product.

My question is: Is it worth pursuing a leadership role that offers significant career growth but moves me away from the company’s core product and an org that I've built up a lot of social capital within?

Alex Chiou · Accepted Answer

This is a good question and tricky dilemma. It depends on you:

Do you want to do management? - Management is less of a career growth lever (I strongly don't believe senior IC -> EM is a promotion) and more of a career pivot/lateral move where you add engineering value in a different way. I am making a career direction course which will cover this more, but fundamentally, the signal you want when considering this transition is how you much you supporting, growing, and protecting people. If you are someone who finds immense joy in seeing others succeed (maybe even more than seeing yourself succeed!), then you are built to be a manager. If not, being an IC is a better route. Here's a relevant playlist to go through: [Taro Top 10] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -> M Track)
Do you like security work? - If you really enjoy working on security, then it makes sense to double down on it and sharing that passion with other folks, making them awesome at security as well.

When it comes to career growth, a big component of which is promotions, it actually happens across 2 vectors:

The scope within your organization
Your passion for the organization and its work

If you are in an organization with medium opportunity but you are deeply passionate about it, you can still ascend quickly. On the flip side, if you are in a high opportunity org but you really dislike the work and people in it, you probably won't get promoted that fast. There is this fuzzy but powerful productivity boost you get when you genuinely love the work you're doing - You care more about quality, you communicate more effectively and enthusiastically about it, you work with more speed and intensity.

Weighing Career Growth vs. Staying near the core product of the company

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