From Lead Engineer to Software Engineer II
Career progression isn't always linear, my decision to switch from a lead engineer to software engineer II had many factors...
Yes you’re reading that right.
When people usually write articles like this, they talk about their path to promotion. I’m here to talk about going in the opposite direction.
You see, before I joined Microsoft, I was a Lead Engineer at a Startup and I decided to take, what some may deem, a backwards step, to join a company I was so eager to join.
Why did I do that? Some people have asked.
Was I insane? Did I not believe in myself? Did I not negotiate hard enough?
Hopefully I can explain a little bit more in this article my thought processes throughout the process of changing roles.
1. Back to the start…
I figured I should start with my journey to getting promoted to Lead Engineer in the first place.
The company I was previously at was a fintech Startup in the events space. I joined the company as a senior software engineer and was working predominantly on the RFID platform.
If you’ve ever been to an event where you’re given a wristband that you could use to buy food, go in certain areas and use lockers etc… Well we were basically working on the technology that enabled that.
When I joined I made it clear that eventually I would love to be a lead engineer or team lead.
I’m really passionate about helping to build others and make them better, and so it was something I was really keen to progress into.
After around half a year in, I got a little bit more than I bargained for though, our Team Lead on the RFID platform was a contractor, and he just announced that he was leaving in a few weeks because he wanted to go back to being a regular IC.
Because I was the only in-house senior on the product, and I had the most domain knowledge at the time, an opportunity came where this role was offered to me.
I was obviously ecstatic about it, it was an amazing opportunity for me and it aligned with my long term goals, but I can’t lie and say I felt that I was ready.
From a people and backlogging standpoint, I could do it, those were my strengths… But from a systems architecture and technical point of view? I just didn’t feel I had the experience that I wanted to, to do the job the way I wanted.
2. Surprise I’m pregnant!
A month or so after becoming a Lead Engineer, I find out I’m pregnant. Typical, everything always happens at once for me ha!
A few months later we need to fly out to Durango, I’m 15 weeks pregnant and we are there to fix any urgent issues that occur during our first live event.
Now this is probably where I excel, I’m good in a crisis and I’m also good with defect triage.
I’ve gotta be honest, the event was a little bit of a disaster, there was no WiFi, when we told them we needed WiFi in order for the online top ups to occur, we were given the tiniest stall to set up all of our devices and it was in front of a restaurant where everyone could see, the devices that we gave to the vendors kept overheating due to the heat and customers were getting frustrated at the wait times.
Whilst the event was a total mishap, we had some great learnings that we could take away from it and make the product better overall.
Shortly after I got back, I started working with my maternity cover who was shifting over from our other product offering to take my place as tech lead on the team.
It became abundantly clear, at least to me, that there were gaps I was missing from an architecture standpoint.
For example, we were having some issues with reconciliation and were having to do so of them manually due to a way the product had been designed, he came up with a really clean solution for us to be able to do that going forward.
And it just made me feel like I needed more technical mentorship first, as I believe as a tech lead, I should have also been able to do that.
3. Contact from Microsoft
Also shortly after getting back from Durango, I receive this message in my inbox…
And I’m thinking, is this real? I go to the recruiter’s profile to check they definitely work for Microsoft and send to my partner/best friend.
For sure, it is and I’m apprehensive, I’m pregnant of course so I find that a worrying factor, I respond with this:
Thankfully, the recruiter messaged me back and told me that regardless of my situation they would be happy to accommodate.
And so I thought, what’s the worst that could happen?
4. After the offer…
When I got the offer, I was shook.
For full transparency, when I was a Lead Engineer I was on £60k, the thing about being promoted earlier than you’re ready is that the salary typically falls in line with that also.
The offer I got from Microsoft (salary + bonus + stocks) put me close to £100k as well as a great company maternity pay too.
I wasn’t expecting such a difference, I was pretty honest with what I was looking for and was happy to take a similar salary to what I was on previously due to taking a lower role with less stress.
They gave me an offer which was pretty much in the middle of their range for an software engineer II, the great thing about working at Microsoft is you have the ability to check your comp ratio against everyone else’s.
Again, this was another indication to me of how fair Microsoft are, they didn’t try to underpay or lowball me based on my current salary, they paid me what was in line with everyone else.
5. The redundancies
The Startup was struggling to secure the seed funding they needed for the next year, and during the time I left, there was also a few redundancies made outside of the engineering teams.
Shortly after I left, cuts were also made to the engineering teams too.
Whilst I couldn’t have foreseen this, I do feel very lucky to have got the offer when I did, because going on maternity would have made me very anxious.
6. Growth opportunities
One of the things that excited me most about working at Microsoft was the growth opportunities.
For those that know me, they know I crave strong technical leadership, I love being surrounded by people who can teach me things and that can make me a better software engineer.
I knew that by joining Microsoft I would be surrounded by just that.
I have been so fortunate over the past couple years to have such strong technical and people leadership since starting here. The thing I love most is that people just get stuff done.
That’s not to say I didn’t have strong leadership before, I absolutely did and I learned loads… But it does feel like since starting at Microsoft, my learning has accelerated.
To summarise…
So if I were to condense this list into the key considerations that I had, they would be:
I didn’t feel like I was ready to be a lead engineer, I still needed a lot of mentorship.
Microsoft were my dream company to work for.
The compensation Microsoft offered were amazing.
The growth opportunities at Microsoft were incredible too.
Instability at my previous role due to redundancies occurring.
Ultimately, I didn’t care about the title, I cared about the work I’d be doing. My core driver is learning, and as long as I get to do that, I’m happy.
Should I have negotiated title? I don’t like to dwell on the what ifs, all I know is that I worked hard and I feel they’ve seen my potential since.
Do I regret my decision? Never, it was the best career decision I made.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Why not check out my latest video where I talk all about it too:
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Congrats on the pregnancy and the new role (Especially for the timing right before the company layoff).
Great post and a great breakdown of the decision-making!
In a scenario where a Lead role in Microsoft would be difficult to get some months\years along to road, would you still consider staying in Microsoft?
This article was a good read indicating that getting to learn and getting mentorship takes precedence over titles.