Exploring career paths at League
When I took my first computer science course in university I was already well into a degree for something completely different. I had taken the course as an elective to make up the credits I needed to graduate, so I had no idea going in that during that semester I’d find something I was going to be really passionate about. It was only a week into the class when I first made those two magical words appear on screen, “Hello, World!”, and I was completely hooked.
My first few development roles after university were all in the financial industry. That’s where I met some fellow developers who introduced me to the wonderful world of consulting. Consulting is most definitely not for everyone, but it ended up being a fun and exciting part of my career. I loved the new projects and new teams and, most importantly, learning about new technologies. This lifestyle provided me with a constant stream of new challenges and the rush of continuously having to tackle different technical problems.
While I did eventually grow tired of consulting, all these years later I still love the things that drew me to programming in the first place; the logic, the puzzles, the problem solving — these components still make me excited to come to work every day and have been the main reason I’ve been hesitant to leave programming behind. I’ve often wondered if I might enjoy a role in management, so that I could help drive what problems my team is solving instead of just helping come up with solutions, however, I’ve been really wary of leaving development roles behind. Until I came to League that is.
My role as engineering manager (EM) at League is quite different than the same role at other companies. While in past organizations the focus of these types of roles was always on the project management and people management parts of the job, here an EM is also required to be very technical — we even assess for this skill through an architecture challenge during our interview process. I’d always worried in the past that taking a management role would mean slowly losing all the technical expertise I’d spent years cultivating, but that definitely isn’t how things work at League.
Features are still designed and built by engineers, but managers are expected to provide input and be able to speak to why certain design decisions were made. We have a very robust architectural process which encourages participation across the entire engineering organization, very much including the leadership team as well. Here at League, by taking an EM role you’re gaining management and leadership skills, while still driving architectural decisions and guiding engineers toward solid technical solutions.
And the reassuring part is, if after making the career change you find that you miss the unique challenges that development work provides, there is always a road back to a purely technical career path. This means it’s not risky to embrace these types of career changes and flex your leadership muscles in a traditional “managerial” way even if you end up deciding what you ultimately want is day-to-day work with a more technical focus.
This summer I’m embarking on my first EM role (wish me luck!). I’m exceptionally thankful to have an amazing support system of folks at League who have already made this jump. And while I’m equal parts nervous and excited about this new challenge, I know for sure that given what this role means at League my days will still be filled with the problem solving and puzzles I’ve loved so much throughout my career.
P.S. Being an EM it’s now my official duty to tell you, we’re hiring! Check out all our awesome open roles here and come work with our #DreamTeam.
