Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!oakhill!hamm From: hamm@austoto.sps.mot.com (Steve Hamm) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Not engineers Message-ID: Date: 18 Apr 91 19:27:04 GMT References: <1991Apr17.144402.16637@sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM> <33186@mimsy.umd.edu> Sender: news@oakhill.sps.mot.com Reply-To: hamm@austoto.sps.mot.com (Steve Hamm) Organization: Motorola SPS, Austin, TX Lines: 36 In-Reply-To: cml@tove.cs.umd.edu's message of 18 Apr 91 13:19:23 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: toto -----On 18 Apr 91 13:19:23 GMT, cml@tove.cs.umd.edu (Christopher Lott) said: CL> If I remember correctly from my brief time at IBM, they have a CL> dual career track. Good technical people can become senior then CL> more senior (forgot the catchy titles) tech people without CL> assuming managerial duties. I assume (but don't know) that the CL> salaries were comparable. Anyone else out there work for a place CL> with this dual track? Is this common? Motorola has a technical ladder as well as managerial. IMHO, progressing in it is almost as political as managerial promotion, and it is highly oriented toward hardware design engineering (with lots of weight on patents), but it functions quite a bit better than supposed equivalents at other places I've worked. As to how common it is, it depends. Small companies tend not to need it, since visibility (and appropriate recognition/rewards for the better technical people) is less of a problem. Large companies tend, I think, to have these programs in place because they KNOW they have an opportunity (aka problem) in this area. Medium sized companies (say, 100 -> 1000 employees) are likely to be really variable. (Personal experience.) In a medium sized techie company, the founders and initial employees could form a club, and make it REAL difficult for high-performing latecomers to join. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not. It's part of the graceful-transition-from-startup- to-larger-company problem, and sometimes it isn't graceful at all. Just my opinions. --Steve -- Steve Hamm ------- Motorola Inc. Semiconductor Systems Design Technology 3501 Ed Bluestein Blvd., MD-M2, Austin TX 78762 Ph: (512) 928-6612 Internet: hamm@austoto.sps.mot.com Fax:(512) 928-7662 UUCP: ...cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!austoto!hamm