The Two Tracks of Growth
How do we grow?
As a manager, part of your responsibility is helping your team grow. That includes understanding their aspirations and guiding them in a direction that aligns with both their goals and the needs of the organization. But what should they be aiming for? And who owns that process?
In tech, there’s often a bias—implicit or otherwise—that real growth only happens by becoming a manager. The message is: want more responsibility, compensation, or recognition? Time to start managing people.
At its best, this produces great leaders. At its worst, it forces brilliant engineers into roles they didn’t ask for, don’t enjoy, and eventually walk away from. We can—and should—do better than that.
I find it more useful to think in terms of two distinct, but equally valuable tracks:
- The Management Track
- The Individual Contributor (IC) Track
Both offer meaningful paths to growth. Both carry serious influence. They’re just different tools for different kinds of leadership.
The Management Track
This track focuses on leading people. It usually starts with a team lead role—managing two to eight people depending on the team’s focus.
If you’re in your first people management role, congrats—you’re on the management track. (And, let’s be honest, most of this site is about helping you thrive there.)
Your job is to increase the output of your team—and over time, the scope of that responsibility can grow significantly.
Andy Grove says it best:
A manager’s output = the output of their organization + the output of neighboring organizations under their influence
Let’s break that down.
Growing the Output of Your Organization
At the beginning, growth often looks like adding people to your team. But teams top out quickly—somewhere around seven people, give or take—before you hit diminishing returns on your time and attention.
So the next step is managing multiple teams, which often means managing other managers. Your focus shifts from executing through one team to orchestrating across many. If your team is still small, you might continue to lead one directly as well—but make sure you’re adding value and not becoming a bottleneck.
Your measure of success?
Your team’s output. Not your own individual contributions. Not your GitHub activity.
Letting go of “doing” and embracing “leading” is one of the hardest (and most important) shifts to make.
Growing Influence in Neighboring Organizations
The second part of Grove’s equation is about extending your influence beyond your direct line.
You do this by:
- Joining steering meetings
- Helping shape strategic decisions
- Partnering across functions
- Influencing hiring, tech direction, or org design
This is about leaning into opportunities that sit adjacent to your formal responsibilities—and helping the organization perform better through your involvement.
But… What About the Technical Work?
As you move up the management track, technical contribution becomes less central. Your job changes. Some people love this evolution. Others struggle with it—especially if their self-worth is closely tied to hands-on technical output.
You might be able to carve out a little space for technical work, but it’s important to be honest with yourself:
You’re in a different role now.
You’re measured by your team’s success, not your own commits.
The Individual Contributor Track
The IC track offers an equally valid and valuable growth path—one that’s rooted in technical excellence, mentorship, and architectural influence rather than people management.
Progression might look like:
- Junior → Mid-Level → Senior Engineer
- Senior → Staff Engineer → Principal Engineer → Architect
Your influence isn’t tied to a reporting line—it’s tied to your expertise.
ICs at the senior levels:
- Solve high-complexity problems
- Design systems that scale across teams
- Mentor and train other engineers
- Lead technical groups and influence best practices org-wide
- Help make (or prevent) high-impact business decisions
They might not run performance reviews—but they absolutely shape the technical trajectory of the company.
Compensation
Ideally, both tracks should offer equivalent earning potential. A Staff Engineer’s contribution should be valued similarly to that of an Engineering Manager or Director—if their impact is at a similar level.
Of course, not every company gets this balance right. In a tech-first org, ICs might earn more. In more traditional or corporate environments, managers might have the edge.
It’s worth asking:
What does your company truly value?
Moving Between Tracks
Moving from IC to manager—or back again—isn’t a one-way street.
When promoting someone into management, try framing it as a time-bound trial. Set clear goals. After a few months, check in: Is this working for them? Is it working for you?
If not, there should be a clear path to move back—without stigma.
The same goes for managers who want to return to IC work. If their skills still deliver value, let them move. If there’s a long ramp-up needed, some adjustment in compensation may be reasonable—but the shift itself shouldn’t be a career-ending choice.
Having the Conversation
If you haven’t talked about these two tracks with your direct reports, start soon.
A quick check-in during 1:1s—“Which path do you think you’re on right now? Where do you want to be?”—can open up a huge opportunity to support their growth.
Not every conversation needs to become a career planning session. But these nudges matter.
Could you delegate a people leadership task to someone curious about management?
Could you match a junior IC with a senior mentor for technical depth?
Small steps now open big doors later.
In Summary
Growth isn’t one-size-fits-all.
Some people thrive on coaching, organizing, and scaling through others. Others thrive on solving hard problems, mentoring, and building systems. Both are valuable. Both are leadership.
Your job is to recognize the path each person is on—and help them move forward on it with intention.
And if you’re not sure where you want to grow next? That’s okay too.
The important thing is to keep talking about it.