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Stop Trying to promote my best engineers
We can't reliably identify great engineers in interviews. The process is broken—some candidates are master performers who can't ship code, while others interview poorly but become your best team members. So when we finally, miraculously find exceptional engineers on the job, what do we do? We immediately try to promote them away from what they're great at.
In this episode, we explore the absurdity of the traditional career ladder that assumes the best reward for mastering engineering is to stop doing it. Drawing on personal experiences interviewing the "greatest communicator" who couldn't complete a single task, we examine the Peter Principle in action: great developers become senior developers, then tech leads, then managers—at each step stripping away what made them valuable in the first place.
The problem isn't just organizational—it's structural. Many engineers don't want to manage people, but they see "senior," "lead," and "manager" as the only path forward for recognition and compensation. We've built a system where the only way to give someone a significant raise is to promote them into a role they might not want and might not be good at. The result? We lose great engineers and gain mediocre managers who are miserable in their roles.
We need to normalize horizontal growth—paths where engineers can gain expertise, tackle more complex challenges, and earn top-tier compensation without leaving their position of strength. Because if interviews can't identify great engineers, shouldn't we do everything possible to keep them exactly where they are when we finally find them? Just give them more money and let them keep writing code.
Key Quotes
"It's like finding an Olympic swimmer and immediately making them a swim coach. Sure, maybe they'll be good at it. But you just took an exceptional swimmer out of the pool."
"The traditional career ladder assumes that everyone wants to eventually stop doing technical work. It assumes that the best reward for mastering a craft is to stop practicing it."
"If interviews can't reliably identify great engineers, shouldn't we do everything possible to keep them exactly where they are when we finally find them?"
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By Ibrahim DialloWe can't reliably identify great engineers in interviews. The process is broken—some candidates are master performers who can't ship code, while others interview poorly but become your best team members. So when we finally, miraculously find exceptional engineers on the job, what do we do? We immediately try to promote them away from what they're great at.
In this episode, we explore the absurdity of the traditional career ladder that assumes the best reward for mastering engineering is to stop doing it. Drawing on personal experiences interviewing the "greatest communicator" who couldn't complete a single task, we examine the Peter Principle in action: great developers become senior developers, then tech leads, then managers—at each step stripping away what made them valuable in the first place.
The problem isn't just organizational—it's structural. Many engineers don't want to manage people, but they see "senior," "lead," and "manager" as the only path forward for recognition and compensation. We've built a system where the only way to give someone a significant raise is to promote them into a role they might not want and might not be good at. The result? We lose great engineers and gain mediocre managers who are miserable in their roles.
We need to normalize horizontal growth—paths where engineers can gain expertise, tackle more complex challenges, and earn top-tier compensation without leaving their position of strength. Because if interviews can't identify great engineers, shouldn't we do everything possible to keep them exactly where they are when we finally find them? Just give them more money and let them keep writing code.
Key Quotes
"It's like finding an Olympic swimmer and immediately making them a swim coach. Sure, maybe they'll be good at it. But you just took an exceptional swimmer out of the pool."
"The traditional career ladder assumes that everyone wants to eventually stop doing technical work. It assumes that the best reward for mastering a craft is to stop practicing it."
"If interviews can't reliably identify great engineers, shouldn't we do everything possible to keep them exactly where they are when we finally find them?"