I liked the EM experience, and at the same time, I wished to be more hands-on on some of the projects that the team was doing. Switching back to an IC role would help satisfy that desire.
Because I read Charity Majors’ The Pendulum or the Ladder and chose the pendulum. I’m grateful to Charity Majors for writing such a great perspective, because it made me conscious of the choices in front of me. As I said, I chose the pendulum, so I will eventually be back in a management role if and when that would be useful to the team I will be in.
Because I was inspired by Keavy McMinn’s Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path. Keavy’s description of “What does the strategic work of a very senior engineer look like?” resonated with me.
From Charity Majors – The Engineer/Manager Pendulum: The best frontline eng managers in the world are the ones that are never more than 2-3 years removed from hands-on work, full time down in the trenches. The best individual contributors are the ones who have done time in management. And the best technical leaders in the world are often the ones who do both. Back and forth. Like a pendulum. So these tech leads usually spend more time in meetings than building things, and they will bitch about it but do it anyway, because writing code is not the best use of their time. Tech is the easy part, herding humans is the harder part.
Plenty of room to grow, career wise
From Charity Majors – Questionable Advice: “After being a manager, can I be happy as a cog?”: Leadership is primarily exercised through influence, not explicit authority. Senior ICs who have been managers are supremely powerful beings, who tend to wield outsize influence. Smart managers will lean on them extensively for everything from shadow management and mentorship to advice, strategy, etc. (Dumb managers don’t. So find a smart manager who isn’t threatened by your experience.)Shouldn’t technical people be responsible for technical decisions, and people managers responsible for people decisions?Oh and stop fretting about “competing” with the 20-somethings kuberneteheads, you dork. You have been learning shit your whole career and you’ll learn this shit too. The tech is the easy part. The tech will always be the easy part.
No Regrets: My Time in Management Wasn’t Wasted — Joy Ebertz
Companies like Dropbox reserve first-level engineering manager roles for internal promotions only, as an incentive to senior engineers, since the role is limited in number.