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Ask HN: EM to Director

20 points emthrowaway123 | 1 comments | 12 Mar 25 16:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.237s | source

How are you all thinking about your careers and making this move?

I'm going on 10 years of management with another 6-7 years of IC experience. I'm starting to see directors at big tech companies that are not only younger than me, but with far less management experience. Granted, I did get a few unlucky breaks - first startup got acquired and the parent company brought their own execs in, second startup promised me a director role but wasn't a good fit, and my current role is in a bigger tech org and they're not promoting from within and all recent hires are from the C-suite's previous company.

I could probably go to a smaller company and be a director, but that would be a step back in terms of scale and money.

A lot of companies aren't hiring in the US like they were, so growing organically seems like a poor strategy.

Is there a secret I'm missing?

1. skmurphy ◴[12 Mar 25 20:02 UTC] No.43347102[source]▶
In many companies the director-level promotion requires agreement from other directors in other departments. Not every director in the company but directors from other groups or organizations you will interact with. It's different from the promotion to manager or senior manager which normally only involves review by managers or directors within one silo.

The jump to director is by no means driven just by experience or tenure and may require skills or expertise you have not demonstrated. It may be time to have a career conversation with your VP.