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Ask HN: EM to Director

20 points emthrowaway123 | 1 comments | 12 Mar 25 16:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.217s | 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. simne ◴[13 Mar 25 20:01 UTC] No.43356745[source]▶
I'll describe situation from investors view.

Exists just two approaches to hire director. Each have drawbacks.

1. Grow organically from lowest position (Henry Ford claimed, he use this approach in FMC). Drawbacks - it is slow and such director will be definitely conservative, because he grown in company environment and probably will not want to change anything. Good things are - such way is good check of professional quality, and such director could be more loyal for company.

2. Hire director from outside, farther - better. Drawbacks - high risks to hire person without need knowledge/skills and definitely collective will see him stranger. Good things such person probably will be more open for innovations and will not much depend on company traditions.

Each investor himself decide, what he think more important for company - loyalty or innovation. I usually think, innovation is highest priority, but to be honest, life is complicated, and possible case in which I'll chose more conservative way.

And sure, human behavior is about will, for example, Lee Iacocca grown in FMC from mechanic, but once become president of other company.