so the thing to do is actually to drop a level. not to try to be a higher-level engineer, but to almost drop a level and simply become the greatest teammate for a while. you’re still responsible for your work, you’re just trying to get moving again. you know, “I’m just here to help and support my teammates. I’m going to do bugs, the annoying things on somebody else’s plate or that no one has been able to get to. do grunt work, organizational stuff, write-ups. just things to help people out.”
The rest of the blog is context, and explaining the inverse of this is the death spiral.
That's basically how I approach work, but the motivation is a bit different.
It's also the lowest effort way to not get fired.
Hmm.. helping others isn't "dropping a level". That's literally what senior engineers are for?
I think the engineers that he's talking about need to hear it said that way. Their idea of what a senior engineer does is wrong.
Not just the freshly promoted engineers themselves. I've had the discussion "don't promote, increase compensation" too often. With HR, with hiring managers, with C-level.
I was promoted into management myself too early. And I made many, many mistakes. Would have been better to have been a Sr. Engineer for a couple of years, though back then, it didn't really work like that, yet. Now, it is much easier to tune things, and I think that having engineers that make the same kind of money as C-level is more acceptable nowadays too. There are people that are really worth a lot that under no circumstance should ever be promoted away from the work they love.
he's not saying they should actually drop a level, he's saying they should rethink what their role is
right?
Hmm. Maybe I interpret the article wrong then.
It was really nice to read this, aloud, in my head.
Not a senior or whatever, just everybody needs to read/hear this at least once, honestly. Be kind to yourself.
Counterpoint from someone who lived this: dropping a level to do grunt work only compounds if it's timeboxed. I gave myself 6 weeks of pure unblock-work — flaky tests, docs nobody owned, bugs on other people's plates. Reputation went way up AND I accidentally became the only person who understood three subsystems, which unblocked my promotion case. The trap version is doing it indefinitely without telling your manager it's a strategy — then you just become the helpful person who never ships. Timebox it, narrate it, exit it.