Elena Verna · 22 min read · Product Strategy
Report: What people *really* think about IC work.
Read the original on elenaverna.com →
The author reunites findings from a Typeform-powered study on IC work, revealing strong demand to spend substantial time as an IC (71% want at least half time, 27% want IC-only) and highlighting that former managers who become ICs rarely want to trade roles. The main downside for ICs is lack of influence, not compensation. The study used AI-assisted interviews with 300+ participants to explore perspectives across former managers, current managers considering the switch, and player-coaches, culminating in guidance on building high-impact ICs.
Key Takeaways
- Most people want substantial IC work: 71% want at least half their time as an IC and 27% want IC-only work.
- Former managers who switch to ICs tend to stay in that path and wouldn’t trade roles; managers are more likely to want different roles.
- The main downside of IC work is lack of influence (66% cite influence as a concern), with compensation cited by about 32%.
- A robust qualitative study (300+ interviews) using AI-assisted analysis reveals nuanced perspectives across groups and provides a framework for building High-Impact ICs (HI-Cs).
Excerpt
(Disclosure: This post is part of a paid partnership with Typeform , including the use of the Research Flow platform at no cost. All of the findings and analysis are my own.) IC work. So hot right now. I’ve seen it myself, going back to an IC role at Lovable. And a few months ago, I said that IC work is the new career flex and it ended up being my most-engaged post ever. So, seems like there’s something there. So I decided to dig a bit deeper. I ran a study! Some of my favorite highlights: Yep, people want…