You want to be one of those "go to" people! They are put on the most challenging assignments, the most exciting opportunities, more often promoted, protected from above, last to let go and frequently asked to follow that leader to new assignments at new companies usually with higher titles and better comp.
It seems to me you have been spotted by your Sr. Director and given an opportunity to prove yourself as you did in your prior team. It's a logical move to take a high performer from one team, and try to prop up an underperforming team. It's about what's good for the company.
If this fails, you won't necessarily be blamed, but you'll have lost an opportunity to really stand out amongst any other engineer at your level and earn the status of your Sr. Director's "go to" person.
Your value is in being a versatile, competent "can do anything, anywhere and happy to do it" type of resource who can be thrown into the biggest messes and come out looking good.
To weight in with what most likely is an unpopular opinion here on HN - but you also have to consider your job satisfaction and stress factors before and after the potential move - sometimes it is best to shift orgs entirely and continue doing what you like doing rather than be forced to take on new challenges (that might or might not be intractable).
There are two basic ways to orient a career: around a set of people that you are loyal to and work well with (and then let the specific assignments float to whatever needs doing), and around a type of work that you enjoy doing (and then let the people come and go, standing out by your competence in the domain).
I've found that the former often leads to more promotions and opportunities, because people make the decisions after all. But OP's expressed desires indicate more the latter. He gets satisfaction out of the work itself, understanding the technical domain and challenges. If that's your personality type and your inclination, you can make yourself very unhappy (not to mention underperforming) by pushing yourself into types of work that don't give you satisfaction, for the sake of preserving relationships. Sometimes it's worth it to forego the attractive opportunities favored by senior leadership so that you can continue to work on the things that you find enjoyable.
Not everyone is up for that (yes, it can be quite stressful). For those that can deal with it, it can be a lot of fun. I'm a good fixer, but not really into the chaos that fixers often deal with.
I know folks that are consultants, exactly so they won't be tied down to one task.
This really echoes the old “hackers, builders, maintainers” analogy and its wisdom about knowing which you are and being able to understand the other two aren’t the same as you are. Likely dips into the spectrums between as well.
Reads like you are in a (very?) large org. Reorgs and politics are par for the course.
You got a promotion into an area where you have a chance to prove your chops by improving on things. Get this right and you'll be in line for more promotions.
Being "the expert" in a specialized domain is often a career limiting thing. Broadening your areas of success is generally better for your long term career.
Probably best to wait until the new director settles in before pitching your proposals. In the meantime, take a look at how you can further improve how the management views your contributions and the value you produce.
Similarly, I think sometimes being displaced to somewhere less comfortable is a good thing in a career. I had this a couple of times, one turned out not ideally, but the other ones (which are smaller, but still tosses me from place to place) proved to be better in the long run.
I prefer to be a T shaped person, but having a broader top doesn't harm the process of going deep. In retrospective, I found that having a broader knowledge provided the paths and fuel to dig deeper the part I care about the most.
Counterpoint, if you want to stay in the company, asses the leader's (one that displace you) personality and track record. There's some leaders that will reassign your role to a totally different one on a whim, without considering your skill and experience. Worse, you may get accounted for when failed.
The best way to stay the longest in this kind of company is to perform the minimum required.
You’ve been given the chance to show that your previous success wasn’t just a function of the domain you were in and team you were on.
Taking a flailing org and being visibly a part of turning them around will open a lot of doors in your current company. Notably those open doors won’t really translate if you switch jobs. If you switch jobs you’ll have to rebuild the trust that senior middle-management have in you.
At the end of the day if you want to find a small niche and stay in it then senior staff+ is likely not for you unless your technical area is in demand and very complex.
I'll also share a little of my brush with management... there's "easy mode manager" and "hard mode manager".
"Easy Mode" is when you're naturally promoted from IC to Manager in a problem domain you know, and already have the respect and admiration of your peers.
"Hard Mode" is when you're transitioned to manage a team where you don't know the problem domain, and don't already have a good working relationship with the people you'll be managing.
Much depend on your personality and support structure. If you're a "technical homebody" or don't have good support/rapport with the new director? This would be signals that this new role isn't the best fit for you.
"At first, the senior director didn't outright tell me I couldn't stay in the old domain, but made it very clear it was in my best interest to move to the new domain, where there wasn't a staff+ engineer."
Do you think this was good advice? You took their advice, even if it seemed a bitter pill at the time. They were most certainly part of the process for your promotion.
It feels like this senior director is in your corner. I'd schedule a 1:1 with a simple agenda of "looking for advice".
Definitely start with a compliment. "I remember that you advised me to move to X, Y time ago, and you were right that it was great for my career and promotion."
Be clear and specific about your desires - "I miss working on X technology. I was wondering if you have any visibility into any 2025 Q2, Q3, H2 projects or opportunities related to X technology that I might be able to [contribute to or transition to]." Sometimes you can be 50/50 to try something out or dip your toe in the water if you are attached to the success of something else. It's important that you be clear and specific. Maybe you could do this via email - it depends on if you are introverted or extroverted.
I once had an EM go back to Principal IC in an area that he loved. He's still working on it.
Talk to your boss, make sure that you wont be fired over some simple complaints, then gather your team around and make sure to send the message that screwing around and completing one task a week is over, maybe fire the worst guy. Raise the rigor for 200%. Fridays should end at 2pm, you and your team go straight to a bar where beer is plentiful. Thank me in a month.
I'd guess that management is hoping that you've got some Right Stuff, to lift your new team's performance out of the basement.
But what about the "two experts are already prominent as leaders" on your new team? Were they there when that team was building its "we are crap" reputation? Are they technical experts, who aren't really capital-L leadership material? Are there personality clashes, and maybe those guys need to be separated? Or, given the fired director, might management be looking to put a fresh set of trusted eyes (you) into the situation, to let 'em know what the problems on that team are?
Am I the only one worried on the poster's behalf that their entire office is gonna know about this post, first thing in the morning?
Or are they playing some 3D chess, and that was the plan all along?
Not that they are saying inherently bad things about the company, but the various doubts they express may not be seen as a strength (not that I wholeheartedly subscribe to that view).
Don’t approach the new director as someone with an issue. Nobody likes problematic cases. Enjoy your promotion and keep good reputation.
You don’t control anything, you’re a figure in power game of directors and senior directors. They will think and you will deliver and get stocks and salary for that. Your happiness is secondary thing as I experienced first hand couple years ago. You should think how far are you ready to go for your compensation. Eventually your happiness, satisfaction and high salary can’t be combined. Which one will you choose?
You have no control over that. If you are thrown into a bad project, you will rot with them. Or turn the situation around by using your own expertise.
That's what being a leader means, you deal with the ambiguity, is paid more, but if things don't go as expected, you are axed.
The only thing that can save you is if you have built relationships with senior directors that could save you.
Just a reminder that Tomorrow the CEO can wake up and desire to cut people to increase their margins and Staff engineers working on improvements are the first to go.
There's no such thing as a career. Just focus on making money while you can.
Also, make sure you have a few doors open in case you need to get out.
This means you want to have a flexible skill set in case you need a new job, also a network of people that wants to work with you.
Definitely tell the new director what you want, and firmly, without threatening to quit over it - leave that unsaid. If you are really valued, s/he will try to accomodate you. If not, then you know where you stand and then it's time to put up or shut up.
I have never found any value in merely airing my feeling. Just say what you want, that is much easier for a boss to deal with.
If everybody wanted to work on the easy problems / already successful products / coolest new tech, we wouldn't be able to run any companies at all. If you are as good as you think you are, you should be able to take this unsuccessful team, turn it around and make it a winning story that will propel you even higher in your org+career.
True but a bit unfair here? Sounds like there is a speciality the OP wants to build. I assume they believe that getting more experience in that is benefitial and maybe they have a plan.
I think gift horse and mouth applies as well: Promotions like that are not easy to get especially to stay as an IC (ish) role. But there is a tactical and perhaps comfort zone aspect to wanting to stay put.
The 6x stock is another curve ball for us would be advisors! If that is RSU maybe they are on a million comp and then the question is what is least likely to get me fired so I can retire in 5.
Possible middle ground if you can't immediately get what you're hoping for: Explain to the new Director that in the medium term you'd still like to be able to also work with the prior domain, and try to negotiate roughly "if I can fix this team to the point where it doesn't need me, then I get moved to cross-domain work."
This has obvious risks of them not coming through once you achieve the first part, but if this team is as screwed as you describe and management are confident in you being able to unfuck it - and of needing somebody at your level of competence to do so - then it might turn out to be a net positive route for you, your career, the team, and the company.
Also might be easier to sell to the new boss, and a deadline for them to actually deliver on that promise if you can get it made of "when said stock vests" would fit your being willing to leave then and their being aware you've passed the vesting deadline for a decent chunk of options will probably give you a stronger position from which to press them to deliver at that point.
(of course there's lots of details here you know and I don't and I'm still on my first pot of coffee, but hopefully the general shape of the idea provides some inspiration that fits the full situation)
> One is that I really don't like being in charge of my own destiny with this kind of thing.
There is a bit of contradiction in this and next statement.
> because I wasn't in control.
Control is the most important factor in managing emotions. People without control are 10x more likely to suffer from trauma. (Car accidents while driving vs being a passenger)
> It pains me to leave
Do you have ADHD? This looks like Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, talk to a specialist - I'm not one.
I’ve seen the “go-to” person get trapped in a local maximum, because even though they get opportunities, they are held to a higher standard. It’s a recipe for burnout if you don’t know what you’re doing, and can keep you from building deep expertise, since you’re constantly bouncing from fire to fire.
Absolutely! Eventually, completely losing perspective. I know from experience! Once reaching what should be a terminal position... I spent roughly 7 years chasing these fires before finding something else. My desirable skills were weakened while bad habits were developed.
After all, guess what? The other place wants a sucker too. "Career limiting" doesn't sound so bad to me, I've only seen it demand more. Much Sisyphean, wow.
If I were you I would try to look at this as an opportunity. Every team that under performs has more room for improvement and the more senior you become, the more your work becomes about how you can impact a team than a particular task.
Focus on making the team better and you will always have a home. Better yet, learn to be interested in how to make teams better.
Here is op's post, paraphrased by chatgpt o3-min-high with a bit of humor:
Alright, listen to this: I was happily working on my team, doing my thing—until the reorg hit like a bad punchline. Suddenly, another team from next door shows up, tinkering with a different stack in the same domain—because, of course, office politics is the real art here! Next thing you know, my director gets canned for “bad performance” (yeah, right), and the other team’s product flops spectacularly. And then they steal our stack—and me! Now I'm shoved into a new domain with a shiny title: senior staff engineer, on a team known for its underachievement. My heart’s still in the old domain, where I actually cared about the work. Now, with a new director arriving in two weeks, I’m left wondering if I should unload this absurd mess of corporate lunacy. But hey, the stock’s up 6x, so I’m not jumping ship. I mean, what’s the deal with this circus? It's like being stuck in a never-ending episode of a bad sitcom!
If you want someone to tell you to find another job, then consider this to be that.
On the other hand, so long as employment primarily defines your identity your identity will always be defined arbitrarily by the place you work.
A new director is starting in two weeks. I don't know how much or whether to surface these issues to him.
If a letter of resignation is the means of expressing yourself, then it makes sense. Otherwise, wait until asked. Being senior means adapting to moved cheese. Good luck.
Working on your specialty or becoming more useful as an engineer is a choice you have to make. You were promoted and assigned somewhere to help. If you can help, then this will make you look great. If you can't, your attitude will make you look great, or awful, depending.
Just FYI. I had a friend that had a similar issue.
In his case, he was deliberately thrown at an underperforming team, because his boss knew he was (still is) a “fixer.” He can Get Stuff Done.
It worked. He got the underperforming team into shape.
He no longer works for that company, but that was because Amazon tossed a big bag of money at him, and hired him away. His old company would gladly hire him back.
Might want to consider that. May very well not be the case, here.
I just remember my friend saying almost exactly the same thing. In his case, he brought his concerns to his manager, who explained what was going on.
This can be a great opportunity, but it can also be a trap. I was labeled a "fixer" at a past job, I was the one who Got Stuff Done, and so I was hand-balled a succession of train wrecks to fix, while the people creating the train wrecks continued blissfully on, train wrecking every new project they got their hands on. They, of course, had plenty of time to advocate for themselves and got to work on every interesting new project coming through, while I was flat out attempting to remediate their previous shenanigans.
This may be true, but remember that my friend also got hired by Amazon, after a year or two of "fixing."
"Fixers" are incredibly valuable, and only a moron manager would squander them (sadly, there are a lot of terrible managers out there).
I remember watching an episode of the new American version[0] of HPI[1], and thinking that it is a SciFi story, because her manager is a smart, fair woman that believes in her, has her back, and takes personal risks on her behalf.
It's not good enough just to be the fixer, your friend has the skill to advocate for themselves even to the degree of impressing an uninitiated third party. IMO the parent comment sounds like they're not doing this yet.
> Another is sadness at the loss of prominence in the company, since I have to re-orient myself on this new team, where two experts are already prominent as leaders
Nobody gives a fuck about you OP. It's all in your head. Also you work for a company. It's a legal entity which gives zero fucks to anything except its own stock price.
> I'm not willing to leave the company because its stock 6x'ed last year.
This is all the metrics that matter. Everything else is stories that you invented to have some purpose in life.
It's hard to do this when this person has gone out to prove themselves in the first place. The company has to reciprocate, otherwise they're "double" asking that person. Like with any trust-based system, it should be a series of reciprocations with increasing levels of trust/reward/value. If one of them skips it, and still expects the other side to do their level of increase, then that is when an imbalance happens and feelings of resentment being to take hold.
Honestly, I think the thing you should be asking is: Why didn't you get promoted to senior staff engineer and given leadership over the two stacks, but rather the other person did. If it's a team that needed help, rather they give it to the more senior and experienced person, and you get more experience in your new role whilst managing an existing team that is proven and you have domain-experience over.
To me, what this says, is that the other senior staff engineer was given a "promotion" in the form of managing "two" stacks, i.e. bigger head count. And you were essentially demoted to being moved over to another stack and team. Doubly so if that other team or stack or project is not seen as that important. The title they gave you was a way to placate you about the effective demotion.
But even that interpretation could be wrong. At the end of the day, it's the machinations of the company and based on decisions made by people in the "right room", a room you weren't a part of. No amount of rationalizations will make your feelings of the topic go away. I know this because I've been in similar situations, and those feelings never really go away, you will always feel slighted. Even if you raise it with management, at best they'll make you go away with manager-speak, at worst it'll colour every negative or hiccup that happens in your new position or project.
Every leader has their "go to" people.
You want to be one of those "go to" people! They are put on the most challenging assignments, the most exciting opportunities, more often promoted, protected from above, last to let go and frequently asked to follow that leader to new assignments at new companies usually with higher titles and better comp.
It seems to me you have been spotted by your Sr. Director and given an opportunity to prove yourself as you did in your prior team. It's a logical move to take a high performer from one team, and try to prop up an underperforming team. It's about what's good for the company.
If this fails, you won't necessarily be blamed, but you'll have lost an opportunity to really stand out amongst any other engineer at your level and earn the status of your Sr. Director's "go to" person.
Your value is in being a versatile, competent "can do anything, anywhere and happy to do it" type of resource who can be thrown into the biggest messes and come out looking good.
To weight in with what most likely is an unpopular opinion here on HN - but you also have to consider your job satisfaction and stress factors before and after the potential move - sometimes it is best to shift orgs entirely and continue doing what you like doing rather than be forced to take on new challenges (that might or might not be intractable).
Well, sounded to me like OP wanted a career. What I described leads to a career.
Sort of.
There are two basic ways to orient a career: around a set of people that you are loyal to and work well with (and then let the specific assignments float to whatever needs doing), and around a type of work that you enjoy doing (and then let the people come and go, standing out by your competence in the domain).
I've found that the former often leads to more promotions and opportunities, because people make the decisions after all. But OP's expressed desires indicate more the latter. He gets satisfaction out of the work itself, understanding the technical domain and challenges. If that's your personality type and your inclination, you can make yourself very unhappy (not to mention underperforming) by pushing yourself into types of work that don't give you satisfaction, for the sake of preserving relationships. Sometimes it's worth it to forego the attractive opportunities favored by senior leadership so that you can continue to work on the things that you find enjoyable.
It really depends on the type of person you are.
Not everyone is up for that (yes, it can be quite stressful). For those that can deal with it, it can be a lot of fun. I'm a good fixer, but not really into the chaos that fixers often deal with.
I know folks that are consultants, exactly so they won't be tied down to one task.
This really echoes the old “hackers, builders, maintainers” analogy and its wisdom about knowing which you are and being able to understand the other two aren’t the same as you are. Likely dips into the spectrums between as well.
Reads like you are in a (very?) large org. Reorgs and politics are par for the course.
You got a promotion into an area where you have a chance to prove your chops by improving on things. Get this right and you'll be in line for more promotions.
Being "the expert" in a specialized domain is often a career limiting thing. Broadening your areas of success is generally better for your long term career.
Probably best to wait until the new director settles in before pitching your proposals. In the meantime, take a look at how you can further improve how the management views your contributions and the value you produce.
Similarly, I think sometimes being displaced to somewhere less comfortable is a good thing in a career. I had this a couple of times, one turned out not ideally, but the other ones (which are smaller, but still tosses me from place to place) proved to be better in the long run.
I prefer to be a T shaped person, but having a broader top doesn't harm the process of going deep. In retrospective, I found that having a broader knowledge provided the paths and fuel to dig deeper the part I care about the most.
Counterpoint, if you want to stay in the company, asses the leader's (one that displace you) personality and track record. There's some leaders that will reassign your role to a totally different one on a whim, without considering your skill and experience. Worse, you may get accounted for when failed.
The best way to stay the longest in this kind of company is to perform the minimum required.
This is basically peter principle in the working
You’ve been given the chance to show that your previous success wasn’t just a function of the domain you were in and team you were on.
Taking a flailing org and being visibly a part of turning them around will open a lot of doors in your current company. Notably those open doors won’t really translate if you switch jobs. If you switch jobs you’ll have to rebuild the trust that senior middle-management have in you.
At the end of the day if you want to find a small niche and stay in it then senior staff+ is likely not for you unless your technical area is in demand and very complex.
I'll also share a little of my brush with management... there's "easy mode manager" and "hard mode manager".
"Easy Mode" is when you're naturally promoted from IC to Manager in a problem domain you know, and already have the respect and admiration of your peers.
"Hard Mode" is when you're transitioned to manage a team where you don't know the problem domain, and don't already have a good working relationship with the people you'll be managing.
Much depend on your personality and support structure. If you're a "technical homebody" or don't have good support/rapport with the new director? This would be signals that this new role isn't the best fit for you.
"At first, the senior director didn't outright tell me I couldn't stay in the old domain, but made it very clear it was in my best interest to move to the new domain, where there wasn't a staff+ engineer."
Do you think this was good advice? You took their advice, even if it seemed a bitter pill at the time. They were most certainly part of the process for your promotion.
It feels like this senior director is in your corner. I'd schedule a 1:1 with a simple agenda of "looking for advice".
Definitely start with a compliment. "I remember that you advised me to move to X, Y time ago, and you were right that it was great for my career and promotion."
Be clear and specific about your desires - "I miss working on X technology. I was wondering if you have any visibility into any 2025 Q2, Q3, H2 projects or opportunities related to X technology that I might be able to [contribute to or transition to]." Sometimes you can be 50/50 to try something out or dip your toe in the water if you are attached to the success of something else. It's important that you be clear and specific. Maybe you could do this via email - it depends on if you are introverted or extroverted.
I once had an EM go back to Principal IC in an area that he loved. He's still working on it.
Good luck!
Talk to your boss, make sure that you wont be fired over some simple complaints, then gather your team around and make sure to send the message that screwing around and completing one task a week is over, maybe fire the worst guy. Raise the rigor for 200%. Fridays should end at 2pm, you and your team go straight to a bar where beer is plentiful. Thank me in a month.
Cheers
I'd guess that management is hoping that you've got some Right Stuff, to lift your new team's performance out of the basement.
But what about the "two experts are already prominent as leaders" on your new team? Were they there when that team was building its "we are crap" reputation? Are they technical experts, who aren't really capital-L leadership material? Are there personality clashes, and maybe those guys need to be separated? Or, given the fired director, might management be looking to put a fresh set of trusted eyes (you) into the situation, to let 'em know what the problems on that team are?
Am I the only one worried on the poster's behalf that their entire office is gonna know about this post, first thing in the morning?
Or are they playing some 3D chess, and that was the plan all along?
Not that they are saying inherently bad things about the company, but the various doubts they express may not be seen as a strength (not that I wholeheartedly subscribe to that view).
I would hope any post like this has the insignificant details changed enough for the situation to be unrecognisable.
Don’t approach the new director as someone with an issue. Nobody likes problematic cases. Enjoy your promotion and keep good reputation.
You don’t control anything, you’re a figure in power game of directors and senior directors. They will think and you will deliver and get stocks and salary for that. Your happiness is secondary thing as I experienced first hand couple years ago. You should think how far are you ready to go for your compensation. Eventually your happiness, satisfaction and high salary can’t be combined. Which one will you choose?
You have no control over that. If you are thrown into a bad project, you will rot with them. Or turn the situation around by using your own expertise.
That's what being a leader means, you deal with the ambiguity, is paid more, but if things don't go as expected, you are axed.
The only thing that can save you is if you have built relationships with senior directors that could save you.
Just a reminder that Tomorrow the CEO can wake up and desire to cut people to increase their margins and Staff engineers working on improvements are the first to go.
There's no such thing as a career. Just focus on making money while you can.
Also, make sure you have a few doors open in case you need to get out.
This means you want to have a flexible skill set in case you need a new job, also a network of people that wants to work with you.
It sounds to me like you're trusted, well liked and have an opportunity to prove yourself.
Don't get too hung up on feeling in control, or preferring a comfortable domain. Everything in life is a blend of agency and context.
It honestly sounds like your Sr Director is looking out for you and pushing you towards not getting pigeonholed.
Definitely tell the new director what you want, and firmly, without threatening to quit over it - leave that unsaid. If you are really valued, s/he will try to accomodate you. If not, then you know where you stand and then it's time to put up or shut up.
I have never found any value in merely airing my feeling. Just say what you want, that is much easier for a boss to deal with.
If everybody wanted to work on the easy problems / already successful products / coolest new tech, we wouldn't be able to run any companies at all. If you are as good as you think you are, you should be able to take this unsuccessful team, turn it around and make it a winning story that will propel you even higher in your org+career.
True but a bit unfair here? Sounds like there is a speciality the OP wants to build. I assume they believe that getting more experience in that is benefitial and maybe they have a plan.
I think gift horse and mouth applies as well: Promotions like that are not easy to get especially to stay as an IC (ish) role. But there is a tactical and perhaps comfort zone aspect to wanting to stay put.
The 6x stock is another curve ball for us would be advisors! If that is RSU maybe they are on a million comp and then the question is what is least likely to get me fired so I can retire in 5.
Possible middle ground if you can't immediately get what you're hoping for: Explain to the new Director that in the medium term you'd still like to be able to also work with the prior domain, and try to negotiate roughly "if I can fix this team to the point where it doesn't need me, then I get moved to cross-domain work."
This has obvious risks of them not coming through once you achieve the first part, but if this team is as screwed as you describe and management are confident in you being able to unfuck it - and of needing somebody at your level of competence to do so - then it might turn out to be a net positive route for you, your career, the team, and the company.
Also might be easier to sell to the new boss, and a deadline for them to actually deliver on that promise if you can get it made of "when said stock vests" would fit your being willing to leave then and their being aware you've passed the vesting deadline for a decent chunk of options will probably give you a stronger position from which to press them to deliver at that point.
(of course there's lots of details here you know and I don't and I'm still on my first pot of coffee, but hopefully the general shape of the idea provides some inspiration that fits the full situation)
> One is that I really don't like being in charge of my own destiny with this kind of thing.
There is a bit of contradiction in this and next statement.
> because I wasn't in control.
Control is the most important factor in managing emotions. People without control are 10x more likely to suffer from trauma. (Car accidents while driving vs being a passenger)
> It pains me to leave
Do you have ADHD? This looks like Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, talk to a specialist - I'm not one.
Remember War Games and 'winning'. This, like nearly everything, is a status game. Do you want to play?
Having been the 'go-to' person other posters mention... I suggest considerable hesitation. Inch, mile.
I’ve seen the “go-to” person get trapped in a local maximum, because even though they get opportunities, they are held to a higher standard. It’s a recipe for burnout if you don’t know what you’re doing, and can keep you from building deep expertise, since you’re constantly bouncing from fire to fire.
Absolutely! Eventually, completely losing perspective. I know from experience! Once reaching what should be a terminal position... I spent roughly 7 years chasing these fires before finding something else. My desirable skills were weakened while bad habits were developed.
After all, guess what? The other place wants a sucker too. "Career limiting" doesn't sound so bad to me, I've only seen it demand more. Much Sisyphean, wow.
I would consider cashing in your stock if the company’s stock 6xed and is likely at a local or global maximum.
If I were you I would try to look at this as an opportunity. Every team that under performs has more room for improvement and the more senior you become, the more your work becomes about how you can impact a team than a particular task.
Focus on making the team better and you will always have a home. Better yet, learn to be interested in how to make teams better.
In addition, look into Total Quality Management and other theories. This is a well studied topic.
Here is op's post, paraphrased by chatgpt o3-min-high with a bit of humor:
Alright, listen to this: I was happily working on my team, doing my thing—until the reorg hit like a bad punchline. Suddenly, another team from next door shows up, tinkering with a different stack in the same domain—because, of course, office politics is the real art here! Next thing you know, my director gets canned for “bad performance” (yeah, right), and the other team’s product flops spectacularly. And then they steal our stack—and me! Now I'm shoved into a new domain with a shiny title: senior staff engineer, on a team known for its underachievement. My heart’s still in the old domain, where I actually cared about the work. Now, with a new director arriving in two weeks, I’m left wondering if I should unload this absurd mess of corporate lunacy. But hey, the stock’s up 6x, so I’m not jumping ship. I mean, what’s the deal with this circus? It's like being stuck in a never-ending episode of a bad sitcom!
pretty good, imo. Goes to show that comedy (like art) really is a lot about generic rules that are learnable (not only for LLMs!).
If you want someone to tell you to find another job, then consider this to be that.
On the other hand, so long as employment primarily defines your identity your identity will always be defined arbitrarily by the place you work.
A new director is starting in two weeks. I don't know how much or whether to surface these issues to him.
If a letter of resignation is the means of expressing yourself, then it makes sense. Otherwise, wait until asked. Being senior means adapting to moved cheese. Good luck.
Working on your specialty or becoming more useful as an engineer is a choice you have to make. You were promoted and assigned somewhere to help. If you can help, then this will make you look great. If you can't, your attitude will make you look great, or awful, depending.
Just FYI. I had a friend that had a similar issue.
In his case, he was deliberately thrown at an underperforming team, because his boss knew he was (still is) a “fixer.” He can Get Stuff Done.
It worked. He got the underperforming team into shape.
He no longer works for that company, but that was because Amazon tossed a big bag of money at him, and hired him away. His old company would gladly hire him back.
Might want to consider that. May very well not be the case, here.
I just remember my friend saying almost exactly the same thing. In his case, he brought his concerns to his manager, who explained what was going on.
The reward for good work, is more work.
This can be a great opportunity, but it can also be a trap. I was labeled a "fixer" at a past job, I was the one who Got Stuff Done, and so I was hand-balled a succession of train wrecks to fix, while the people creating the train wrecks continued blissfully on, train wrecking every new project they got their hands on. They, of course, had plenty of time to advocate for themselves and got to work on every interesting new project coming through, while I was flat out attempting to remediate their previous shenanigans.
This may be true, but remember that my friend also got hired by Amazon, after a year or two of "fixing."
"Fixers" are incredibly valuable, and only a moron manager would squander them (sadly, there are a lot of terrible managers out there).
I remember watching an episode of the new American version[0] of HPI[1], and thinking that it is a SciFi story, because her manager is a smart, fair woman that believes in her, has her back, and takes personal risks on her behalf.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26748649/
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14060708/
It's not good enough just to be the fixer, your friend has the skill to advocate for themselves even to the degree of impressing an uninitiated third party. IMO the parent comment sounds like they're not doing this yet.
You have right here a very helpful hint of your internal state: “One is that I really don't like being in charge of my own destiny”
The way I see it, you already know that, hence this Freudian slip.
In my opinion, doing _only_ what we love, understand and care about is the path to depression.
You maybe anxious because you are being called to step out of your comfort zone?
> In my opinion, doing _only_ what we love, understand and care about is the path to depression.
I would argue being forced to do stuff you don't care about is a much quicker path.
Being promoted is about being given progressively more ambiguous problems.
Sounds like no one really prepped you for this.
Your job is to untwist the culture and get the group productive.
I suggest you do a lot of listening and learning before you start pushing hard.
Earn trust, and be a model collaborator, and as you earn respect, use it to understand and resolve the interpersonal dynamics.
Your job isn't about programming anymore, it's about people. Sorry.
> Another is sadness at the loss of prominence in the company, since I have to re-orient myself on this new team, where two experts are already prominent as leaders
Nobody gives a fuck about you OP. It's all in your head. Also you work for a company. It's a legal entity which gives zero fucks to anything except its own stock price.
> I'm not willing to leave the company because its stock 6x'ed last year.
This is all the metrics that matter. Everything else is stories that you invented to have some purpose in life.
There are less horrible places than the one you apparently occupy. FYI.
Can you explain more? What exactly did I say which was incorrect?
> I'm not willing to leave the company because its stock 6x'ed last year.
Then just try hard to ace your new task. Show that you repeatedly deliver value, also in more difficult situations.
It's hard to do this when this person has gone out to prove themselves in the first place. The company has to reciprocate, otherwise they're "double" asking that person. Like with any trust-based system, it should be a series of reciprocations with increasing levels of trust/reward/value. If one of them skips it, and still expects the other side to do their level of increase, then that is when an imbalance happens and feelings of resentment being to take hold.
Honestly, I think the thing you should be asking is: Why didn't you get promoted to senior staff engineer and given leadership over the two stacks, but rather the other person did. If it's a team that needed help, rather they give it to the more senior and experienced person, and you get more experience in your new role whilst managing an existing team that is proven and you have domain-experience over.
To me, what this says, is that the other senior staff engineer was given a "promotion" in the form of managing "two" stacks, i.e. bigger head count. And you were essentially demoted to being moved over to another stack and team. Doubly so if that other team or stack or project is not seen as that important. The title they gave you was a way to placate you about the effective demotion.
But even that interpretation could be wrong. At the end of the day, it's the machinations of the company and based on decisions made by people in the "right room", a room you weren't a part of. No amount of rationalizations will make your feelings of the topic go away. I know this because I've been in similar situations, and those feelings never really go away, you will always feel slighted. Even if you raise it with management, at best they'll make you go away with manager-speak, at worst it'll colour every negative or hiccup that happens in your new position or project.
I'm confused as to what you consider your "career path?"