Very simple: a much higher hiring bar, which requires more hiring effort, but it's well worth it. To me, every manager should be deeply technical: that doesn't mean they should be wizard developers, but they should be able to discuss very well technical solutions, have opinions (this is very important! being opinionated and not just go with the flow is really really good, it shows you care!), and also be able to troubleshoot the systems their teams work on, so they don't interrupt everyone as soon as there is even a minor customer escalation. That's key to gaining respect from your team and be effective, from what I've seen. Otherwise, you're basically just a glorified delegator and you're not sheltering your team in any way.
The VP that was hired chose a different approach and decided to poach people with very long management experience in "stagnant" companies, who jumped ship at being promoted to "director of engineering" from their previous "engineering manager" title: of course these folks don't know much about the technical stuff, and are basically just there to manage processes and remind everyone to fill some bs on jira. The major thing these people care about is making the VP happy, it's incredibly comical. Whatever he says, it's law (paradoxically, I have many conversations with the VP and he instead likes that I am frequently confrontational and argumentative, in a good way, when it comes to technical opinions).
This is also dangerous for another reason: as new IC people get hired, they can quickly sense the weaknesses of their managers, so they either 1) Leave out of frustration 2) Stay, because it's convenient for them (it certainly allows average performers to cruise through their job) 3) Or, more dangerously, they manipulate their boss in order to drive their personal agenda (e.g. do horrible work saying to the managers "all the other solutions would be too difficult", and the clueless manager trusts without verifying, since he/she is not capable of verifying).
And do you know why you didn’t get the job when they added the new layer of management? Were you considered but rejected, did you even get a chance to apply or did you wake up one morning to a new boss and new title?
I really feel for what happened to you, but I have trouble believing that a whole raft of incompetent VPs were hired just because they had BigCo du jour in their CV.
In other words, what would you have done differently to avoid this outcome, if you believe it was avoidable?
This is what happened. It's important to understand I'm not bitter about it (anymore), so I'm really just listing the exact steps that led to my "fall", as they happened:
1) About a year after me being into the company and having taken substantial lead in all the engineering initiatives (I was working like crazy and hugely motivating the other folks, always at least 12 hours a day, but it didn't feel like it because I was really excited, so nowhere close to burnout), one of the founders (the CEO) talked to me and said I was doing an amazing job, better than the other technical leads. He said when the time would come, he would seriously consider me for a VP role (we didn't have any VP by then and the company was still just experimenting, we had a few paying customers but no clear vision on how to go to market).
2) After a couple years of tenure, the founder/CEO came to me and said that the company was doing really well (we were growing exponentially by then, and taking new funding with very favorable terms) and that it was time to bring in an experienced VP of engineering. The candidates he had in mind (introduced by the VCs) were all in their late 40s with at least a dozen years of experience as executives, so clearly I wasn't the right person for the role since I was in my very early 30s with much less management experience. He described the VP role as someone who would take on a lot of the overhead I had to do myself, like hiring and keeping a tab on the deliverables, but that on a day to day basis I would still fully lead the engineering team. I kind of believed the story so I didn't think too much of it, and didn't think it was the time to raise drama.
3) Shortly after, the VP (one of the candidates from VCs) came in. He spent a month or two observing things, then talked to me and told me how I was doing amazing things and how everyone in the team loved me (he had 1:1s with everybody where I was praised a lot), and how he wanted to concentrate me more on working on experimental projects while he would be looking to make "big changes" by hiring experienced managers. He said my experience was very good as an IC, and that by managing people I would be "wasting my talent" and that it was all part of scaling the company. I told him I still wanted to be involved in the team operations, and initially he said it was ok, but then over time he proceeded to sideline me more and more (e.g. not including me in relevant technical meetings where I could have easily provided good input). Go figure why, I don't believe I was ever hostile to him or anything that would make me appear bitter. It felt like he was thinking "let's see if I can succeed without him, as opposed to using his help to succeed". At times, I was excluded in things where I more than obviously needed to be in (e.g. niche areas that I architected). Occasionally some of my peers would IM me and say "Hey why are you not in this meeting?".
4) From then until now, the VP has installed this new layer of mid and upper management (directors and managers) by hiring people who strictly have at least 10 years of experience as pure managers. Since we are a startup and we can't exactly steal people from FAANG due to our lower offers, he had to settle with those C-class players (in my opinion) coming from big "stagnating" companies. These people have a completely different perspective on the role, duties and responsibilities than our original culture. They have no vision, just process, which causes the problems mentioned in my initial comment. During this period, my impact on the company has been minimal since I have been put on the sidelines as per VP's request and, while I still have fun because I get to spend time on cool stuff, I haven't affected the bottom line, which I think I could have done had I been still involved in the teams.
I pretty much try to look at every issue from what I could've done better viewpoint - doing the same here. So no offense:
- as a small company CEO, you get less leeway in terms of who you can hire. So there is a high chance his hands were tied and the on paper experience folk probably looked much better than a really really good newbie. Think about it from the perspective of a lay person or busy board member: it's pretty much like how you'd choose a cardiologist. You gotta play the numbers unless you have some great insider scoop. Playing safe is a sad reality :/
- if you really had the ceo ear as you say and carte blanche, you have a part in not making that a productive setup: a ton of people would love to be in that spot, probably would produce more too.
- at the end of the day, your only irreplaceable value in life is your time. By messing around with 'cool projects' that didn't mean much, the biggest loss here is yours.
- ratholing again on the privilege part, if you were that established, no lifer would've been able to affect you that much. There is probably a miscalibration here in your opinion of yourself.
Again - really no offense. Just what I would take away if it were me.
On the loss of time: true, but as I said my equity appreciated significantly, at the current valuation (I am very aware of all our details about funding terms, dilutions etc, so I can calculate a reasonably accurate average case outcome) my total compensation is essentially $1M a year without even counting for possible future growth, and FAANG offered me basically 40% of that, so it’s wise for me to stay put at least until I see the company significantly doing worse. I wouldn’t necessarily consider that sum of money something worth throwing away just for the sake of making a better use of my time. The day I’ll see the probability of my equity becoming zero rise significantly, I’ll leave in a heartbeat, that’s why I interviewed with several FAANG companies over the past 12 months, so I always have the doors open when it’s time.
The cool projects don’t mean much to the company but mean a lot to me, since I’m sharpening my skills in areas that I would bring with me to another career opportunity (e.g. machine learning in a project, and low level system programming in another one).
On the miscalibration: that’s certainly possible, I’ve tried to write facts more than opinions explicitly to avoid that, and all the things they told me indeed happened (e.g. founder said I was the only one to be considered for VP, former team members saying it was so much better when I was leading the team, ...).
Good job on the comp haul. You made exactly the right call staying considering the options were only 40%! Feel free to ignore my points about making yourself useful if that will disturb the status ka'ching quo.
Thanks for the civil convo. Clearly you have put a lot of thought into this and I wish you all the best! FWIW, money is never a waste on smart people :). Money is freedom and an amplifier. I hope you find good uses for the same!
When I interviewed at FAANG (Google, FB and Netflix specifically) I had the chance to talk to several managers as part of the process and most of them were highly technical (they were still involved with technical stuff, and/or had significant contributions in open source projects).
