I've seen this situation play out dozens of times:
1. A company needs a project manager
2. The senior male engineers in the team refuse to step into the role because, let’s face it, many see the social and organizational parts of the job as beneath them 🧵
1. A company needs a project manager
2. The senior male engineers in the team refuse to step into the role because, let’s face it, many see the social and organizational parts of the job as beneath them 🧵
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4. This isn’t because women are "naturally better" at these things. It's because women can't get away with not developing these skills the way men can 🧵
But that's for another thread.) 🧵
6. Usually she gets little to no pay bump and/or training.
7. Often, she doesn't even want the role, but turning it down feels impossible. 🧵
9. For the rest of her career, companies will use the fact that she spent less time on the tech side of things as an excuse her to underpay her. 🧵
And so, the cycle of systemic devaluation of women’s labour continues, while men are rewarded for refusing to step up. /end 🧵
To be a dev or designer you focus on one thing and doing it well, to be a PM you must be both a specialist & a generalist, as well as understanding psychology.
It’s seriously hard
Then, two months after the PMs are laid off, it's a mystery why nothing is done and no one knows what's going on.
Partly because their experience and connections are good for the role.
Partly so the younger engineers they want to boost up, can have the interesting actual engineering roles.
- They slid me from IC into a management role in the first three months I was at [big tech co]
- Because I was still on the IC ladder, I was managing a team while also doing eng work
1/2
- I dropped back into a purely IC position and was promoted to Staff like, maybe a year later.
I don't regret doing it, but taking on management responsibilities very likely stalled my career.
2/2
And in tech, PMs are kind of seen as "burger flippers" - less skilled, doing jobs that "anybody can do". We know better - if anybody could do it, the senior staff should be able to manage.
PM jobs are tough! I've done it in my field, & it's a juggling act between customers, field staff, other companies, operations staff, etc., which is all supposed to happen with perfection as the base expectation. Ugh!
VERY TRUE. A woman who doesn't develop them is not going to get anywhere in tech, and possibly in anything. (I've only been in tech: I wouldn't know about other things.)