An overview of successful, tried-and-true routes into CTO, VPE, and Head of Engineering jobs, from the new book, ‘The Engineering Executive’s Primer’ by Will Larson.
"If you start researching executive career paths, you’ll find folks who nominally became Engineering executives at 21 when they found a company, and others who were more than 30 years into their career before taking an Engineering executive role.
...
Relatively few folks find their first executive job through an internal promotion. These are rare for a couple reasons. The first is that each company only has one Engineering executive, and that role is usually already filled. The second is that companies seeking a new Engineering executive generally need someone with a significantly different set of skills than the team they already have in place."
Hmmm interesting perpsectives! Would you say many top level managers have the expectation of becoming an engineering executive at their existing company or that it is widely understood to "hop" to a new company in order to get a eng exec position?
@Kiran: I cannot speak for Will (who has shared his observation that this is the more rare path)
I know e.g. the current CTO of Skyscanner went from new grad engineer to CTO at the company. I cannot name many people who have gotten promoted above-director positions at the same company. Many Sr EMs and Directors at Uber who are now CTOs and VP of Engineering: they all moved companies. The VPEs at Uber I know were 90% hired into the position, not promoted internally.
So based on my observation, it holds true it's more likely to get hired then promoted to these positions.
“Make sure you’ve spoken with every member of the executive team that you’d work with regularly. Sometimes you’ll miss someone in your interview process due to scheduling issues, and it’s important to chat with everyone and make sure they’re folks you can build an effective working relationship with.”
"If you start researching executive career paths, you’ll find folks who nominally became Engineering executives at 21 when they found a company, and others who were more than 30 years into their career before taking an Engineering executive role.
...
Relatively few folks find their first executive job through an internal promotion. These are rare for a couple reasons. The first is that each company only has one Engineering executive, and that role is usually already filled. The second is that companies seeking a new Engineering executive generally need someone with a significantly different set of skills than the team they already have in place."
Hmmm interesting perpsectives! Would you say many top level managers have the expectation of becoming an engineering executive at their existing company or that it is widely understood to "hop" to a new company in order to get a eng exec position?
@Kiran: I cannot speak for Will (who has shared his observation that this is the more rare path)
I know e.g. the current CTO of Skyscanner went from new grad engineer to CTO at the company. I cannot name many people who have gotten promoted above-director positions at the same company. Many Sr EMs and Directors at Uber who are now CTOs and VP of Engineering: they all moved companies. The VPEs at Uber I know were 90% hired into the position, not promoted internally.
So based on my observation, it holds true it's more likely to get hired then promoted to these positions.
The following point is added two times in a row:
“Make sure you’ve spoken with every member of the executive team that you’d work with regularly. Sometimes you’ll miss someone in your interview process due to scheduling issues, and it’s important to chat with everyone and make sure they’re folks you can build an effective working relationship with.”
Thanks, Vlad! Good catch (and fixed)