Importantly as your career progresses there is certainty at one point you will have to manage and hire people for a role you have not nor likely could not do if you had to. You will also move to a product that, amazingly, you did not yourself build. It is equally certain you will face resistance and even rebellion over these obvious shortcomings. Be careful of being those people because chances are this is going to happen to you if you become successful.
This is one of the things I love about the tech industry, but also one of its biggest contradictions. Many companies are founded and scaled by people who are “unqualified” (read: learning) to do the things necessary to succeed in a given area. It’s one of the few industries where you could work on healthcare, robotics, consumer tech, and two-sided food delivery marketplaces, all in the same career.
Where’s the contradiction? Often, as companies scale, they forget that smart generalists have been a winning formula and pivot to “We need to hire someone with 15 years of experience doing [very specific thing] now.” Hence, you see the same 100 VPs from FAANG companies rotating through leadership positions at all of the biggest scaling companies.
Yes, of course, “what got you here won’t get you there” is a thing, but it’s also remarkable how frequently this plays out. Just as one example, OpenAI’s staff, including its leadership, is now made up of about 20% of former Meta employees.