Just some thoughts to share. No need to reply me.

In Singapore, many of my peers are moving ahead on the management track. Some are rising in rank, running more , bigger projects, leading bigger teams, given bigger budgets, involved in more decisions. I feel left behind. (In fact, my peers in China are even more powerful.)

Most Singapore companies including banks value manager contribution more than technical expertise. The C-level decision makers tend to feel technical talent is cheap and easy to replace.

I feel there’s a deep-rooted, pervasive, widespread perception that managers contribute more and are rewarded more (which is also true on Wall St but more true in Singapore) I have a few Singapore-based friends who worry about me staying on the technical ladder and not on the leadership ladder. Many advise me to move first to project management or architect then to higher management.

But are managers more important than hands-on developers? I feel we had better take a deeper look and dismiss the concept of “importance”. On a tight project every worker plays a critical role, but sometimes the DBA earns highest (why?), sometimes the QA guy earns highest (why?), and sometimes the BA earns highest (though usually manager earns highest). Why? Perhaps the project involves a lot of Database work; perhaps QA is very challenging and stringent and there’s a large and experienced QA team… But ultimately, the compensation depends on “market rate” of the skillset. Best example is WPF (Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation). For a while on Wall St WPF expertise sometimes commands a higher rate than the highest java developer, because it’s in demand and very few guys are available with advanced skill in WPF.

Managers bring special skill to the team — management skill. (Some managers bring technical insight, but many I have seen don’t have the sharpest insight — out of practice.) This skill has a market rate too. I will just talk about project management skill for now. In the US I feel PM isn’t a highly valued skill. It’s a generalist skill. In many Singapore companies it’s valued higher than technical skills.

For various reasons, I am firm in my decision to stay technical. I’m not talented at managing and I won’t be given such responsibilities soon. However, I don’t want to stand still while my peers move ahead. I am planning to do something with my spare energy (if any) to strengthen my career safety and stability ( bullet proof 🙂

* learn more main-stream technologies. My favorites are threading, c++, socket programming, FIX, C#, swing, …

** go in-depth on important details. These are the differentiation factors between experienced developer vs expert developer or top talent.

* learn more financial math. This skill won’t become obsolete like tech skills. Financial math is the hardest part of financial domain knowledge. I much prefer hard knowledge — “soft”, general knowledge don’t differentiate.

* take up algorithm challenges. Most bank interviewers won’t go crazy on this, but some top employers test programmer’s “coding abilities” with on-the-spot algo challenges. I have seen it in Google, Facebook, Amazon and Wall st employers.

* take some mock interviews once a while to keep in combat form

This is my little “strike-back” plan. It takes a lot of time and energy. I doubt I have any spare time.