Is there any incentive to pursue manager position? I would like to get a opinion if there is any significant monetary benefit in moving to be a manager in comparison to staying technical. Is stock or cash component higher? Recently was asked by my manager on which path would I like to pursue in the future. Any insight would be helpful, as I cannot get clear answers internally during discussions.
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I've watched peers make the jump to management , lose their edge technically and then get laid off when the company cuts junior management at a future time. Being good technically been a recession/merger/acquisition proof for me....
I’ve had only progressively worse bosses at Oxy. Oxy management generally su-ks. So I’d do it just to stop being controlled by A-holes.
The most enjoyable part of management is seeing people and projects succeed. Seeing people learn and thrive is most rewarding. It is hard to put a monetary value on that.
Managing people is no easy task. Most of us got many years of college training for technical work and then if you go into management, you are giving few days of training every so often to develop people management skills. Pay is similar with technical. If you enjoy technical, stay there; you’ll have better work/life balance, no matter how bad you think you have it now as individual contributor.
And the job security in a major lay-off isn’t much different as a manager compared to a technical person. Actually job secure is less secure as a manager unless you can still do the technical. But as a manager you are focused on different things, some big picture corporate and some detailed HR stuff. There isn’t much time to learn new technical skills so you may very quickly fall behind on the detailed technical skills.
I made as much as my boss (more than some) during my career on the technical path. BIg pay jumps happened to Director and VP levels.
It's the same salary grade, there are no special bonuses or pay increases vs. staying technical. So if you want to get in for the money, I regret to inform you there is none, I assume may not be the case for GMs and VPs, but what are the chances anyone gets there.
They rolled out STEP and there is a comparison between technical and management. You can see the equivalencies because with technical you can estimate grade with title. But you cannot with leads, but it's exactly the same grade as technical.
The monetary benefit is not there unless you get to very high levels. You have to enjoy managing people to go into management.