"The IC track is one of the best things to happen to the industry -- it's a legitimate and growing path"
Evidence from the Archive
Meta
Meta's recent shift to flatten management layers and invest in IC tracks
Singhal's hypothetical hiring comparison: the IC domain expert versus the lightly experienced manager
Nikhyl Singhal has led product teams on four major consumer products -- Facebook, Credit Karma, Google Hangouts, and Google Photos -- and has mentored hundreds of product managers through career transitions, giving him a front-row seat to the IC-versus-manager decision at scale. Their core argument: The IC track is one of the best things to happen to the industry -- it is a structurally growing path that will only accelerate as AI reduces the need for management layers and rewards deep individual expertise.
The evidence is specific: Meta's recent shift to flatten management layers and invest in IC tracks. Furthermore, singhal's hypothetical hiring comparison: the IC domain expert versus the lightly experienced manager. The design profession as precedent: many designers stay as crafters rather than becoming design managers.
In Nikhyl Singhal's own words: "I think it is one of the best things that happened to our industry because what's happened is, in the last 10 years, and you can tell I'm particularly hard on our managers here, they've basically been promising ICs that early promoted into management. They didn't get taught, and now they're sort of average managers and promising ICs." (Explaining why the growth of IC tracks corrects a systemic industry problem of premature management promotions.)