Engineering manager vs tech lead - software developer career paths

2 parallel career paths: management and individual contributor track, have become a common thing in many tech companies. What are the differences between them and what do different job titles mean?

In this video I'm comparing differences between tech jobs: engineering manager vs tech lead, tech lead vs staff engineer, I compare the roles of team lead to engineering manager and others. All that to explain you what you can expect when taking a new role and how to understand the messy world of job titles in tech industry


📕 Related resources:
https://www.progression.fyi/ - public career frameworks of some tech companies
https://www.levels.fyi/ - levels and salary comparison of tech companies
https://lethain.com/tech-lead-managers/ - why mixing hands-on and management responsibilities is a trap
https://codecapsule.com/2021/07/15/th... - Skills map for senior devs and managers in tech
https://codecapsule.com/2021/06/15/ca... - career paths after senior level
(thanks to Chris Laffra for the last 2 links! Make sure to check out his content about communication for engineers: https://chrislaffra.com/)


🎥 My other videos:
   • What I WISH I KNEW before becoming enginee...   - hard parts of engineering management
   • Books to read as a new engineering manager   - best books for new engineering managers
   • Who is senior software engineer? - Softwar...   - who is senior software developer
   • What does an engineering manager do? | Eng...   - what does engineering manager do



🎥 Timeline:
0:00 Double career ladder
2:26 promotion or career change
3:47 mangager vs individual contributor
5:42 tech lead and team lead
8:33 same title, different job
9:54 outro

If you enjoy this kind of content, check out my website, 🌏 https://notonlycode.org, where I publish more in-depth articles about software development.

As always, if you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, you can contact me:
✉️ email: [email protected]
🐦 Twitter: @GregoryWitek