The EITF Blog

In season 1 of the EITF project, we asked our experts what the transition from an IC (Individual Contributor) to a manager looks like. Here’s our general idea of where management stands today. If you look back to ten years ago, managers were mostly people who were promoted from within, and were uniformly excellent performers. Once promoted, they were expected to act as technical leadership for the team. Today, the definition of management has evolved quite a bit. Our experts from season 1 say that you can be a technical leader, but that doesn’t automatically make you a manager. Management requires a whole different set of skills.  To begin with, a notable change in function from IC to manager is that up to 80% of a manager’s day will be hands-off. Delegation is an art for managers. Management today involves learning all the methodologies and tools required - most technical teams use Agile and Zoom and Teams meetings to keep up with offshore teams. It also involves a lot of communi...

Reflecting on Season 1: In a room full of experienced individuals, how can a new employee be successful in bringing their ideas forward?   Why did we ask this?   We think this question came out of our own experiences being new employees, right out of school. We were joining organizations and working with highly experienced individuals who were subject matter experts. On the one hand, being mentored by them is the experience of a lifetime, but on the other hand, we felt like we were sometimes too intimidated out of respect, to bring up our ideas in meetings. It might not just be students who are right out of school in their first jobs who have this feeling.   Any time someone starts out in a new company, they may feel like they are right back where they started – with the same need to prove themselves and facing the same dilemmas they faced in their first job all over again. Can I ask this question? Is this the right place or right time? If I ask the questio...