Interpersonal skills
Building credibility with peers can only work by building relationships with colleagues. This makes good communication and listening skills a must for individual contributors.
The individual contributor software engineers at Zühlke all have the space to develop and progress – we ensure the same is true for the individual contributors at Zühlke that work in other roles. This includes UX designers, business analysts, solution architects, data specialists, cyber security experts, and DevOps engineers (amongst others).
In this post, we explore:
- What being an individual contributor software engineer means
- The kind of skills you need to become one
- What a typical journey looks like in the industry
- How Zühlke helps software engineers develop their roles as individual contributors
- What makes a good individual contributor growth path
To ensure you get all the firsthand info you need, we also explore what led two software engineers, Seda Kunda, Advanced Software Engineer, and Immo Huneke, Expert DevOps Engineer, to choose individual contributor career paths at Zühlke.
If you want to jump straight to their stories, click here. Otherwise, read on..
Why do software engineers become individual contributors?
Software engineers often become individual contributors because they prefer career progression based on expanding and deepening their technical skills, rather than taking on management responsibilities. In practice, that means:
- Honing their expertise in a particular area of software engineering
- Expanding that knowledge and related skills
- Contributing to the project work (and collective professional expertise) of the team
Being an individual contributor in the software space offers exciting possibilities.
“Something that attracted me to Zühlke was that they understood that some practitioners had a real aptitude for specific areas of study. That a fulfilling progression path was testing their skills in new situations, and environments.”
At Zühlke, our individual contributor software engineers work closely with their People Lead (Zühlke’s unique take on a line manager role) to seek out developmental opportunities. Together they find the right balance based on the individual contributor’s preferences.
One way we do this at Zühlke is by connecting our individual contributors with projects in new domains. For example, applying the skills learnt on a banking project to the energy sector.
We also use ‘stretch’ roles which give individual contributors the chance to learn by working in a role adjacent to their core role. For example, a software engineer taking on product owner responsibilities. Moreover, these skills can be enriched with opportunities to expand on softer skills, like mentoring others.
If you want to see how the two paths compare to each other, be sure to read our post on individual contributor vs manager: which path is right for you.
What do you need to become an individual contributor?
To become an individual contributor, you need to have a blend of interpersonal skills, scientific inquiry and research skills, project management skills, mentoring and instructional skills, and stakeholder communication skills.Below we unpack these core skills in more detail:
“It’s important to note that each sub-discipline – front-end, back-end, mobile, solution architecture, cyber security, DevOps, etc – will also have certain core skill requirements. But these should be clearly outlined in the specific job description for any vacant position,” says Immo.
What does the career path of an individual contributor software engineer look like?
Every employer handles the career paths of individual contributor software engineers differently so it’s important to consider the business’s approach to your growth plan. That’s because these career paths are often shaped by specialists’ sub-sector knowledge. For example, a back-end developer might choose to build out their expertise in databases, or server-side logic.
So it’s vitally important that you understand how your employer plans to help you develop these skills in a structured way that’s in line with your preferences.
“There are so many different stories that make people choose a path as an individual contributor. Make sure you find an employer that understands that so you can balance your professional skills with the areas of software that you’re genuinely interested in.”
Role or job title progression an individual contributor
Below, we break down both a typical career progression for individual contributor software engineers from a job title perspective and how that relates to a growth plan.
Junior engineer
Despite being an entry-level position, junior software engineers possess great technical knowledge and contribute to projects significantly. They build experience by sharing what they’ve learned with other junior peers.
Given this is a formative stage in their career, it’s likely they’ll be executing technical tasks supervised by more experienced individual contributors.
Mid-level engineer
At this level of your career, you’ll have more opportunities to take on complex challenges and responsibilities. Technical work will remain your primary focus, while you’ll also have the chance to mentor more junior colleagues and weigh in on larger strategic decisions.
Senior engineer
As a highly skilled expert, you’ll have more opportunities than ever to make a difference to software projects at a strategic level. That may open the door to taking the lead on technical initiatives, and shaping your team’s technical direction.
Principal engineer
At this point, you’ll have reached the highest level of technical expertise in your organisation. Focusing on technical contributions, you’ll lead complex technical projects, drive innovation, and provide thought leadership in your field.
What makes a good individual contributor software engineer growth plan?
“The best growth plans for individual contributor software engineers are a collaborative effort between the individual and the organisation,” says Seda.
When you have an open culture that provides diverse opportunities, it’s easier to find out the disciplines you like the most, ask questions about them, and get closer to relevant projects more easily. Take life at Zühlke as an example.
Seda and Immo are at different parts of their career. But each has found their calling as an individual contributor.
Now in her fifth year at Zühlke, Advanced Software Engineer Seda explains that when she started her career, she wasn’t actively thinking about becoming an individual contributor. Instead, she automatically assumed that she’ll be pursuing a typical managerial career path to be successful in her career. It took a broad range of experiences – including working with native Android apps using Kotlin, and back-end development with Kotlin and Python – for her to realise that her true passion lay in Android development.
Thankfully, Zühlke offered Seda plenty of guidance, and simplified her choice to be an individual contributor.
“At the beginning of my career I was definitely just trying to go with the flow and figure out where I fitted. I knew I had a real interest in mobile development, and was able to speak to others who were further down that path. They helped me answer questions like ‘what is the future like in this discipline?’ and ‘how far could I go with this?’ That ability to talk about my instincts helped shape my decisions moving forward.”
It’s worth noting at Zühlke, we have our own career model. If you’d like to find out what your software engineering career path could look like with us, you can visit our software engineering team's page.
Immo has spent most of his 20 years at Zühlke as an individual contributor and currently holds a position as an Expert DevOps Engineer. His experience shows that a high level of seniority doesn’t mean you have to take traditional manager roles.
With so much experience, how does Zühlke ensure he still has a chance to develop his own career? He points out three examples.
- Being given an active voice in the challenges and projects he’d like to explore
- Access to on-the-job training, matched to his specific expertise and requirements so he is able to constantly grow and upskill in his field of speciality
- Being able to give feedback on the processes and structures that govern individual contributors so that Zühlke can revise its approach
This combination has given Immo the freedom to change specialisation and learn new skills, to develop these skills and grow, and to make an impact on projects that really interest him. And all within a system that is constantly evolving.
'No one likes to feel like they’re being typecast and can only do one thing – it’s a fear that forces people to move jobs,' Immo explains. 'That’s really not the case at Zühlke.'
Finding the right software engineer role for your career
Prior to joining Zühlke, Immo recalls a time when software careers felt limited to the traditional kind.
“There wasn’t as much recognition that people could become individual contributors,” he explains. “To some extent, I had to fight for the role at previous companies, for example by proactively holding knowledge-sharing sessions.”
Software engineer roles are at the heart of everything Zühlke does. Whatever you choose, the good news is that, as an individual contributor, you’ll have lots of opportunities to upskill and train in your preferred area.
Seda adds: “You can continue to progress depth-wise. The career options are a lot more varied – there are lots of technical routes that you can explore.”
