A career-ending mistake

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Career Planning vs. Flexibility

  • Many argue long-term (20+ year) career planning in tech is unrealistic due to rapid change, offshoring, automation, and life-stage shifts (family, health, burnout).
  • Others say planning is still useful: not for predicting outcomes, but for clarifying direction, mapping options, and course-correcting every 3–5 years.
  • Several posters describe successful “no-plan” or short-horizon careers, moving opportunistically from project to project.

IC vs. Management Tracks

  • Strong disagreement on whether you must choose between technical and management tracks; some companies offer very hands-on lead/director roles, others force a hard fork.
  • High-level IC roles exist but are seen as rare, prestige-gated, and often harder to attain than equivalent management titles.
  • Management is widely described as a different skillset, not a promotion from engineering. Many note the “good IC → untrained manager” pipeline produces poor middle managers.

Quality of Management

  • Many say most managers are bad; others counter that bad ICs are equally common but less damaging due to guardrails, whereas management has no “code review.”
  • Some report consistently good managers who set clear expectations, align interests, and teach how to “manage your manager.”
  • Structural issues: lack of training, misaligned incentives, selection by other managers rather than reports, and the Peter Principle are recurring themes.

Meaning, Money, and Career “Ends”

  • One camp: optimize for fast wealth accumulation without draining life energy (e.g., FIRE, high-paying management).
  • Another: prioritize satisfying work, reasonable stress, and relationships; money is secondary once basic security is met.
  • Various “career ends” are proposed: stable senior IC role, VP/exec, independence/consulting, digital nomadism, frequent role hopping, public-sector stability, or early retirement.

Legacy and Impact

  • Several note that in big tech, code, docs, and individual contributions often vanish or are forgotten within years; relationships and personal growth matter more.
  • Others highlight long-lived systems and foundational components that persist for decades, but still see personal meaning as more important than corporate memory.

Agency and Constraints

  • The thread notes a divide between high-agency readers who can re-skill or pivot and those constrained by family, health, or exhaustion.
  • Reframing “I can’t” as “I won’t” is suggested by some; others call this dismissive of real structural limits.