Latest / The Tech Career Podcast with Fexingo: Engineering Jobs, Interviews, and FAANG Career Strategy / How FAANG Engineers Make the Leap from IC to Engineering Manager
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a moment that happens to a lot of senior engineers around year five or six at a big tech company. You've shipped multiple projects, you've mentored a few juniors, maybe you've even led a small workstream. And then your manager sits you down and says, 'We think you're ready to think about management.' And suddenly a bunch of questions hit you that nobody prepared you for. Luna: Yeah, and that moment is surprisingly disorienting. Because you've spent years getting good at one thing — writing code, designing systems — and now you're being asked to do something almost entirely different. Lucas: Exactly. Today I want to talk about that transition — from individual contributor to engineering manager — specifically inside faang scale organizations. Because the conventional wisdom is that it's a 'promotion' and therefore a good thing. But the reality is more complicated. A lot of engineers take the leap and then realize they've left behind the work they actually loved. Luna: So the question is not just 'how do I become a manager?' but 'should I?' And if so, how do I do it without losing my technical edge or crashing my team's velocity? Lucas: Right. So let's start with the structural piece. At every major FAANG company — Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft — there are parallel career ladders. The IC track tops out at staff engineer or principal engineer, depending on the company. The management track starts at engineering manager and goes up to director and VP. And the compensation bands actually overlap quite a bit. A senior staff IC at Google can easily make as much as a director of engineering. So the financial incentive to switch is weaker than people think. Luna: That's a big one. I've talked to engineers who assumed manager meant more money, and then they were disappointed when they saw the offer letter. The real difference is in the kind of impact you want to have. Lucas: Exactly. And that's where the 'manager readiness checklist' comes in — a framework that some internal coaching programs use. It's not an official document from HR, but it's a set of questions that help you self-assess. The first question: Do you get energy from unblocking other people's work, or from solving technical puzzles yourself? If the answer is the former, management might be a good fit. If it's the latter, you might be happier on the IC track. Luna: And that's harder to answer honestly than it sounds. Because a lot of engineers pride themselves on being the person who can fix any bug, and they don't realize that as a manager, you're not supposed to fix things — you're supposed to make sure the person who can fix them has what they need. Lucas: That's a perfect way to put it. The second question on the checklist is about delegation. Can you hand off a task that you know you could do better and faster yourself, and trust someone else to do it — even if they do it differently? Because if you can't, you will become a bottleneck. And that's the fastest way to lose your team's respect. Luna: I've seen that happen. A new manager who was a brilliant engineer starts micromanaging the design decisions, and within three months the team is frustrated and the manager is burned out from doing two jobs. Lucas: So the third question is about feedback. As an IC, you give code review feedback. As a manager, you give career feedback. And that's a completely different muscle. You have to talk about someone's blind spots, their growth areas, their potential — without crushing their confidence. And you have to do it regularly. One-on-ones are not status updates; they're coaching sessions. Luna: There's a great book by Kim Scott called 'Radical Candor' that a lot of FAANG managers read. The idea is that you have to care personally while challenging directly. And that's hard if you've spent your career being direct about bugs but not about people. Lucas: Right. And the fourth question on the checklist is about politics. I don't mean that in a cynical way — I mean organizational awareness. As a manager, you have to navigate cross-team dependencies, stakeholder expectations, and sometimes executive pressure. You need to be able to say no to a product manager without burning the relationship. You need to know when to escalate a technical risk to your director. That's emotional labor that a lot of IC engineers don't have to deal with. Luna: So let me ask you this — if an engineer decides they do want to make the leap, what's the actual first step? Do they just tell their manager, 'I'm interested in management' and wait for an opening? Lucas: That's the common path, but it's not the best one. The best first step is to start doing management work without the title. Volunteer to be the tech lead for a project that involves coordinating multiple teams. Take on the role of onboarding new engineers. Offer to run the team's retro or planning meetings. Show your manager that you can handle the non-technical parts of the job. Luna: And that also gives you a chance to test it out. You can spend a few months doing more managerial tasks and see if you actually enjoy it, without committing to a full career change. Lucas: Exactly. And if you enjoy it, then you can have a conversation with your manager about a formal transition. At most FAANGs, the process involves a 'trial period' — typically three to six months — where you're a hands-on manager but still writing some code. And then you evaluate together whether it's working. Luna: I think one of the hardest things for new managers is letting go of the code. There's this identity shift from 'I am an engineer who also manages' to 'I am a manager who used to be an engineer.' And that can feel like a loss. Lucas: It is a loss. And it's okay to grieve it. But the best managers I've seen find new ways to stay technically engaged — they review design docs, they participate in architecture discussions, they mentor engineers on their technical growth. They don't need to write the code to have technical influence. Luna: So the key is to reframe your identity — not as someone who stopped being technical, but as someone who amplifies the technical work of a whole team. Lucas: That's exactly right. And that's the mindset that makes the transition sustainable. Now, there's one more piece I want to touch on, which is the timing. The worst time to become a manager is when you're burned out on the IC track. Some engineers see management as an escape from boring tasks or difficult projects. But management comes with its own set of stressors — personnel issues, performance reviews, layoff decisions. If you're already exhausted, management will not fix that. Luna: Honestly, if today was worth a coffee to you, that's the link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. We keep this show ad-free, and listener support makes that possible. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small way to say this content matters to you, and we appreciate it. So back to timing — the best time to make the leap is when you're thriving as an IC and you feel like your impact is becoming constrained because you can only do so much yourself. That's when you're ready to multiply your impact through others. Luna: I want to ask about the counterargument. There's a growing movement in tech — some people call it 'the IC renaissance' — where senior engineers are choosing not to go into management because they see managers getting burned out or laid off faster. Is that a real trend? Lucas: It is a real trend. And it's driven by something structural. In many companies, the management track has more visibility but also more volatility. When there's a reorg or a layoff, managers are often the first to be affected because they're more expensive and their roles are seen as more interchangeable. Meanwhile, the IC track at the staff level is becoming more respected and better compensated. So the calculus is shifting. Luna: That's a good point. And it ties back to the idea that the decision should be about fit, not about a promotion. If you're a great IC, you should feel empowered to stay there. Lucas: Absolutely. And I think the best companies are starting to recognize that. They're creating parallel tracks for ICs that have the same prestige and pay as management. So the choice becomes genuine. And that's healthy for everyone. Luna: So for our listeners who are considering the leap — what's the one concrete thing they should do this week? Lucas: I'd say have a conversation with your manager, but not about a promotion. Have a conversation about trying one managerial task — maybe running the next sprint retro or leading a project kickoff. And then reflect on how it felt. Did you enjoy it? Did you dread it? That self-awareness is the foundation of a good decision. Luna: And if you're on the fence, there's no rush. The IC track is a perfectly valid career path, and many of the best engineers in the world never manage a team. Lucas: Exactly. The goal is not to become a manager. The goal is to find the role where you do your best work. And for some people, that's management. For others, it's deep technical contribution. Either way, knowing yourself is the first step.