What it means
An individual contributor is a professional without management duties and responsibilities who contributes to a company independently to support its mission and goals.
Indeed
IC is one of three common career tracks in UX and content work:
- Individual Contributor
- Manager
- Executive
Where you’ll hear it
It’s most commonly used in tech / UX / product cultures, where there are often many teams with many layers and types of management, including design managers (people managers), project managers, and product managers.
A given design discipline, such as Content Design, might have:
- one executive (Director of Content Design)
- several managers (Content Design Manager or Design Manager)
- many ICs at various levels on the career ladder
How to use it
If you tell a recruiter that you’re looking for an “IC” role, that means that you don’t want to be a people manager with direct reports. It means that you want to be part of a team, and focus on the skills of your craft, such as writing or research.
What to expect
At some organizations, the career ladders for ICs in design disciplines are often not as “tall” as you might like, which makes for difficult choices when you reach the top — do I have to go to another company? switch to a management track? tough it out?
As an IC at a tech or product company, your immediate “boss” will likely be some sort of design manager. You will be their “direct report”, and they will handle things like your PTO requests and performance reviews. Ideally, they’ll also have your back and help to sort out office politics and protect you from the worst of it.
For content ICs, your manager is often not a content person themselves, and may come from more of a general management, design, or product background.