The Multiplier Mindset

Chapter 2. Career Paths and Roles

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When you are growing as an engineer, it becomes very important to understand your options. Knowing in which direction you want to grow is the best way to focus on building the right set of skills to progress to the next step. Everyone is different, and what may work for one person may not work for another. It’s important that you play to your strengths.

Career Paths

There are three main career paths available in software engineering, though moving to a product career path is also a possibility. This chapter focuses on the three main engineering paths, as depicted in Figure 2-1: individual contributor, management, and architect.

Figure 2-1. The three main career paths in software engineering

Every company has its own career ladder; speak to your manager to get a better sense of how your company structures its engineering organization.

In this section, I’ll go through each path and its main role titles in detail and share ...