Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnewsm!lfd
From: lfd@cbnewsm.att.com (Lee Derbenwick)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Not engineers
Summary: Member Technical Staff vs. dual-ladder
Message-ID: <1991Apr21.173924.16465@cbnewsm.att.com>
Date: 21 Apr 91 17:39:24 GMT
References: <1991Apr17.144402.16637@sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM> <33186@mimsy.umd.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 43

In article <33186@mimsy.umd.edu>, cml@tove.cs.umd.edu (Christopher Lott) writes:
> If I remember correctly from my brief time at IBM, they have a dual
> career track.  Good technical people can become senior then more senior
> (forgot the catchy titles) tech people without assuming managerial duties.
> I assume (but don't know) that the salaries were comparable.  Anyone else
> out there work for a place with this dual track?  Is this common?

AT&T, in Bell Labs and related R&D areas, has a slightly different twist
to this.  Traditionally, one title ("Member Technical Staff" or "MTS")
was used for all technical people from new hires with shiny new Masters'
degrees through PhD's with 40 years experience in the company.  There
was no stigma attached to remaining a non-manager MTS for your entire
career.  (Indeed, while there were indeed perks, a salary increment, etc.,
for becoming a manager, managers were _not_ willing to give up the MTS
title.  Thus, Ian Ross is an MTS who happens to be President of Bell Labs.)

In recent years, the MTS category has been subdivided slightly into
MTS-I ("MTS One" as the entry level), MTS, and DMTS ("Distinguished MTS").
So it's somewhere between a technical ladder and the old MTS concept.
(MTS-I also functions as a bridge between the "Associate Technical Staff"
levels and full technical staff, a gap that used to be almost impossible
to get over.  IMHO, this improved career path for people who happened to
join the company without an MS is the one good thing that's come out of
the subdivision.)

I've also worked at a couple companies with "dual ladders".  In both
cases, the dual ladder was somewhat of a farce, since _both_ sides were
actually management.  The "management" ladder involved managing people
(e.g., salary review) and overall budgets, etc.  The "technical" ladder
involved managing projects.  You can't do much personal technical work
if your job involves directing the work of 10 or 20 or 50 other technical
people (depending on your spot on the ladder), even if you aren't
officially their "manager".

I've heard of a company near Penn State (a post-WW II spinoff?) that
addressed this problem via a _TRIPLE_ ladder: people management, project
management, and technical.  Seems to make sense to me, but does anybody
have any real info on how it works?  Has anyone else tried it or anything
similar?

 -- Speaking strictly for myself,
 --   Lee Derbenwick, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Warren, NJ
 --   lfd@cbnewsm.ATT.COM  or  <wherever>!att!cbnewsm!lfd