Amritansh Raghav On Knowing When To Leap: Career Advancement In The Engineering Space

Engineering jobs, especially at prominent tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta, may seem on the outside to be the golden goose of gigs. It seems they’re always in demand, the engineers are always in a strong negotiating position, and there’s always another, better job to be found at a competitor’s just across the way. Longtime technology executive Amritansh Raghav, longtime technology executive, knows that isn’t really the case. He’s worked as an engineer for decades at heavy hitters including Microsoft and Google.

And while tech engineering jobs continue to be in demand and likely have a robust future, artificial intelligence may have something to say about that, but that’s a topic for another time. The actions necessary for an engineer to maximize earning and promotional potential are subject to the same societal shifts that have encompassed most of the modern working world.

And Amritansh Raghav has some ideas on how to do that.

A Brave New World

The form and nature of work is constantly evolving. Coders and computing engineers weren’t around to any real degree 75 years ago. Elevator operators, auto, and steel workers were. Things change.

Along with those changes come adjustments in the social — and actual — contract that exists between those who pay others for their time and expertise and those who are paid to give them.

Through most of the 20th century, the U.S. economy was reliant on manufacturing as its primary financial engine. Inherent in that employment system was the idea of loyalty and stability, staying with one company through one’s career — maybe advancing, maybe not, depending on the role.

The reward for that loyalty was often a pension and, should one wish, long-term career development. The cost of leaving? Seniority, which meant loss of money and shift selection with a move, and loss of those long-term benefits. The cost was high.

But as the U.S. economy mutated in the middle part of the century from a less manufacturing-centric economic engine to one that catered more to the service and information sectors, that mindset transformed.

The baby boomer generation, born approximately between 1946 and 1964, was the clearest example of the former path. Along with the costs above, there was a social stigma associated with changing jobs. “Job hoppers” were viewed as unreliable and, if they were changing employment too often, perhaps something was “wrong” with them.

It was a convenient narrative for companies looking to keep costs down. They were able to retain the institutional knowledge and skill set of the workers and had a clear line of sight to what that would cost.

But by the time the end of Generation X was born, and into the millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2022), that belief was history, both in the minds of the employing companies and the workers they employed.

Amritansh Raghav: The Pros and Cons

Amritansh Raghav shares that in his tenure, he’s seen both the loyalty phase and the job-hopper phase play out, sometimes simultaneously.

“I think that I have worked with people who literally joined Microsoft in the late ’80s, worked there for 35 years and just retired right now, had a great impact, done amazingly well, wealthier than I will ever be,” Raghav recalls. “At the same time, I look at my career and other people like me who probably spent four years in a job and then moved to another. I think they both have their pros and cons.”

And there are. Sticking with a company that knows you and your skill set can lead to promotions, more money, and more authority. But staying in one place can also stagnate a career. Regardless of skill set, there needs to be opportunities.

A LinkedIn study found that the biggest reason people left their former jobs wasn’t the culture, commute, or even the compensation. It was a lack of advancement opportunities. And if there are no opportunities at Company A, perhaps Company B might be open to them.

Amritansh Raghav says that for engineers, those who often create and build, sometimes the ability to work on pet projects or venture into new areas is enough of a draw to make a move.

He notes that the chance to pitch projects at the largest entities, like Microsoft, can be limiting, especially for more junior employees. And if that’s important to the engineer, they need that to inform their career decisions, even if it means less money or a more junior title.

“I would say a director at a place like Microsoft, Meta, or Google probably has a larger team, works on a product with greater reach, and has a better financial outcome than a [chief technology officer] or [vice president] in other companies,” Amritansh Raghav says. “The question is: What is the muscle that you want to flex? Operating in large organizations is entirely different from smaller companies and startups. Going back to the distinction between a director at a large company versus a CTO at a small one: Despite the smaller team and niche product, the CTO is where the buck stops.

The CTO is responsible for the entire system — not just technical, but people and processes — for the company. That responsibility is entirely different from being even the top person in a big company where the scaffolding around you provides a structure of support and strength. Again, this doesn’t make one better than the other. Some relish going to work every day and realizing that it’s all on their shoulders. For others, the same responsibility would be painfully stressful.”

Life is a series of trade-offs, and each individual needs to assess what their needs and wants are and what path makes the most sense for them to get there. But Amritansh Raghav advises knowing those options are out there is an essential clue to finding career fulfillment.