Same boat as you, tried for a decade to figure it out, tried many of the suggestions here, eventually gave up and switched to starting small startups and then when they start to grow past a certain point, transitioning to someone else and then moving on to a new company.

A lot of people are just really good at different stages of a company's growth. Me, I'm good at starting from scratch and going until we've shipped the first few major versions of a product or service and have a small but significant number of paying customers. I like the chaos, the blank slate, and I'm not overwhelmed by analysis paralysis on what we should do. I love being involved in everything and wearing lots of hats, and being knee deep in both architecture and development.

Other people are far, far better than me at taking it from there and growing it to "enterprise" level and having 1000s of paying customers. They are good at taking things that were owned by one person and growing a team around it, filling in the feature gaps, etc. They are good at maturing the company's organizational structure as well as the product offering.

Once I had the lightbulb moment that (a) I wasn't very good at those later stages and that (b) I had zero interest in becoming better at them, it allowed me to choose a more compatible career path and made me way happier. Thinking of it as a relay race has also helped me do better at planning ahead for the eventual transition. Just one example: I do much better now at preserving documentation around a lot of our original thinking/planning, especially tradeoff discussions of now vs later things.

I'm curious, do you join startups as an early employee, or do you start new companies?

Last few have been my own, but I heartily recommend first joining other startups as an early employee - you win if the company does well, but even if it doesn't, you can win by gaining many years of experience in a smaller number of calendar years.

Damn how does one find such gigs and do so in a sustainable way?

DIY, mostly. The first one that was truly my own I did by starting a dev-for-hire/consulting company and stashing some of the proceeds on the side to fund development of my first startup, and then from there it's self-sustaining.

For passing the baton to the right people, finding those people is partially luck to begin with and basic networking, but after awhile you know a good group of people that you've worked with in the past (or are friends of them). More than once I've handed things off to some of the same people - I'm ready to leave this gig right as they are ready to leave the prior one.

I've gotten a lot of gigs through this site. Sustainable? hahaha

Ha. Well true that sustainable is a very vague metric. Working out of a faang definitely puts you in comfort zone and as I get older I am trying to see how to wean off it and go independent (even if it is a bit more of a slog) so I can diversify more and really utilize more of myself. Retirement isn't close but isn't looking rosy either :)

In FAANG/larger companies they outline the management track and the staff engineer track. It sounds like you simply want to do the latter - so no, there is nothing wrong or unusual with what you are wanting.

The problem is those roles are harder to find and grow into in smaller and even medium companies. Eng pay tops out unless you gain management responsibilities whereas at those large companies they will pay staff engineers somewhat proportionately to managers.

If your agency is the kind I think it is, the unit economics simply don't allow them to pay you above a certain rate for non management. There also won't be any significant career support.

Research the staff engineer track and if it's something you want to pursue I would consider a move to a larger company into a staff engineer track role, where there are plenty of people who want to be a manager and you can let them right all those battles while you keep your head down and build. You may not be at staff engineer level right now but you will have a career path.

My guess is you are also not being fairly compensated for your talents if you have developed this product line and are essentially the product owner as well. Even more reason to see if you can earn a lot more at a bigger company.

> and the staff engineer track. It sounds like you simply want to do the latter - so no, there is nothing wrong or unusual with what you are wanting.

I could be wrong but it sounds like the OP doesn't even want to be a staff engineer (if my understanding of staff engineer is correct).

https://davidxiang.com/2021/01/19/staff-software-engineer-re...

I'm pretty sure you're still expected to guide other engineers (co-workers/teammates), speak almost as a buffer with management, etc.

If you want to be heads down coding and not dealing with people, I don't think staff engineer is the right track?

Staff engineers are not a monolith. Software engineering is a huge discipline. There are staff engineers out there that do more architect/solver types of work.

https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes

In any case, leadership skills tend to go with the territory.

> Staff engineers are not a monolith.

In my experience, all it takes is your organization to go through one "re-structure", you randomly get a new manager one day, and they have a different expectation on what staff engineer means/should do.

Next thing you know, you're being expected to stop architecting so much, spend more time mentoring interns who have never coded before and got hired randomly because ______.

I wouldn't roll the dice that your job description/definition/expectations stay the same team to team, manager to manager, org to org, etc.

I'd avoid "dancing" for the extra raise or whatever comes with being a staff engineer versus a regular senior engineer if you don't like dealing with people/having a lot expected out of you from a communication, presentation, human interaction standpoint.

I recently went through a "re-structure", and the result was a massive layoff, including Staff-level engineers. So I don't find that as a particularly compelling argument, your job description is never safe anyways.

That's not my experience. Granted, I've only relatively recently reached staff level, but I've been working with other staff engineers (and higher) for a rather long time, including through some re-structuring. Their role seems to have stayed similar, and they still "architect".

But more generally, I think what you describe can always happen, whether you have the "staff" label attached or not. Especially when you get a new manager or management chain, they can always have a different idea of what you should be doing. If anything, I feel that as a staff level engineer I'd have more pull in resisting those changes (if unwanted) than otherwise.

Yeah I don't know when Staff SE became pitched as this lofty leadership position like this, but first half of my career in multiple companies this was basically just next step up in IC positions after Senior SE, not leadership. Principal then after that.

When does IC (individual contributor) go from "how efficient/effective can you make the other ICs on the team?"

I've seen ICs who say "my purpose isn't to code, it's to increase the efficiency of the other ICs on the team who do code, which makes me a 10x engineer, despite not coding, because I increase each team member's individual productivity which is collectively more than I could output individually myself"

Companies I've been in would call that out as technical leadership track, typically architect and above, but sometimes principal.

It really varies from role to role -- staff engineers/principals/whatever nomenclature used can be just another manager/director or a pure dev with light mentorship/heavy resource for helping with hard dev problems and designs and anywhere in-between.

Also regarding nomenclature of the titles -- its all over the place in the wild some places call jr's "staff software engineer" sometimes its seniors or principals.

Where did you learn about this "staff engineer" track?

I have worked at two Fortune 500 tech firms. They had separate career tracks where one was people management focused and the other nominally technical. At both firms the technical track was more like "technical management". None of the folks with high-level technical titles were committing code or doing hands on-technical work. The only difference with line management titles was less personnel responsibility. That is, on the technical track you would not generally need to deal with things like disgruntled employees, giving performance reports, sick time, etc.

IOW, the technical track was a lot like being a tenured professor at a major university. You have intimate knowledge of the research happening and you help may design the experiments. But you are not the one who sits down and runs the experiments.

I do not think the OP would be happy on a technical track in a major company, at least not as I have seen those tracks work. Rather, they would need to work with their line and project management such that they level out at a title where project leadership and decision making is not expected. Maybe that is what you mean by "staff engineer track." You get a Staff Engineer title (or Engineer 3, or Prinicpal or Senior - titles vary so much) and never get another promotion while still collecting merit increases and bonuses.

> Where did you learn about this "staff engineer" track?

The consensus around what a staff engineer is is mostly captured here: https://staffeng.com/guides/

There's minor disagreements, but it's a good start. Ignore the book unless you feel compelled. It's a nice site to use to make sure we're all using the same terminology.

Worked at a consulting firm with just under 1k employees, when I started they only had like 40.

At one point they had a meeting about creating a "technical track". I was in this meeting because I was interested in it. We went around for a while but they basically came back a couple weeks later saying that they don't have the resources to commit to having this track, and admitted they don't really know how it would be sustainable with our business model at the time, nor did they have anybody on the team who had experience with maintaining that kind of track and so it was killed.

We did have the "stronger engineers" who occasionally may still get paid/compensated at a manager level even if they stayed at a slightly lower level not requiring management, but that was about it.

They were also our "big hitters" when it came to putting them on the highest priority projects, and while by nature of consulting most of us were skilled in many different stacks, these people had a specialty that if a project came by that needed that skillset and was high visibility or priority, they were first pick to be on it.

But you had to start managing if you wanted to continue to move up there. I actually ended up leaving because of this, even though they were honestly a great company.

There are a ton of small/midsize startups that also split the tracks these days, at least in the USA

1: Read "The Mythical Man Month," because it describes exactly how to structure a department around people like you. Basically, you're the lead but it's someone else who does the people management. In your case, your higher ups probably aren't familiar with this kind of arrangement and it's on you to educate them. (So you can bring sanity back to your job.)

2: Say very frankly to your superior (CEO, founder, whatever): "I don't want to be a manager." Then, discuss what a manager would do, and how it would reduce your load. (Remember, this is described in "The Mythical Man Month.")

But, if this falls on deaf ears, start interviewing. You don't need to take another job; the point is to signal that you're willing to leave in order to be happy. If you get a counter-offer, you need to be very clear about what must change immediately in order for you to stay. (It doesn't have to be money, BTW.)

---

In my case, I was almost pushed covertly into management. I was assigned management tasks without being a manager in title. When I said to my boss, "I don't want to be a manager," the response was that I wasn't, but that I was going to do a bunch of things that sounded like management. I just refused to do the management tasks and went and looked at job openings.

A few days later, after I walked out of an interview, I had a panicked voice mail from my boss. The next day it became clear that the head of the department told him that I was probably going to leave if I was forced into management. Things were fixed overnight.

---

Edit: You don't need to take a paycut, nor should you offer to take a paycut, nor should you accept a paycut. You're proven indispensable, and if your company is uptight about specific titles having specific pay, then you should leave.

I have hired many developers who have progressed all the way from Jr and Sr through to management and CTO.

When someone is enjoying their career path and responsibility growth, it is an amazing experience for everyone.

When someone isn't enjoying it, it is MISERABLE for everyone. The problem is that in most cases the person in question asked for this career path. It's not their fault, they didn't know they wouldn't enjoy it. A combination of humility, denial and desire (for compensation growth) propels them to keep trying though. Because they are good developers and usually good people, it's hard to tell them they are performing poorly.

The best thing you can do for you, your manager and the company is to have a clear and concise conversation about it: I WAS excited about this path, but it's not working as well as I hoped. I still love being here, is there another path I can take?

A nice way to continue to contribute at a leadership level would be to mentor newer developers, work on some cross functional teams as an advisor, create programs that help others in the company develop skills (run the weekly demo event, create a lunch and learn for developers, etc). There are a lot of things you can do to support the growth of the company overall while keeping the scope of your actual responsibilities more well defined and focused on what you enjoy the most.

I recently switched from being a manager back to the IC ("individual contributor") role. It's not an uncommon switch here where I work (Square). It wasn't an easy decision, and it took many months, but I became much happier with my job almost overnight.

We're in a window—not sure how long it'll last—where the FAANG's and mid-size tech firms have well-defined and well-trodden paths for being a senior developer and _not_ managing. Take advantage of it if you can, while you can, if that's your desire!

I would guess (just making stuff up here) that there's some chance you'd be able to get your company to hire a manager, and some chance they'd be good. But in that small agency-type world especially, you'll be running a risk that if you're not there vetting proposals to make sure marketing didn't promise the moon, you're going to bear the burden when they do .

I used to work for another company where it's acceptable for people to move from management to IC roles (and I wish it were possible everywhere).

They're going to do it anyway, whether it's going back to being an IC at the same company or by leaving to do it elsewhere. If it's not possible to stay they're just going to go (and presumably these are the people considered good enough to promote into management).

After watching several of my friends become managers, directors, and VPs, I got FOMO and finally said yes to the management track about 25 years of software development. After about 3 years of engineering management, I was absolutely miserable, almost not programming at all, and spending 6 or more hours per day making sure I was camera-ready for the next Zoom meeting. Fortunately I had an S-Corporation that lived in a binder on a shelf (and so can you for about $125 and a few mouse clicks), and it came to the rescue. I branded myself as an independent consultant, got super lucky and landed a few retainers, and here I am, making more money and largely sticking to programming at the Tech Lead level. Yeah there's a bit of extra effort that goes into invoicing, running payroll, and paying taxes, but it's nowhere near as bad as management.

What percentage of your time is spent on the sales/marketing side of pitching your consultancy services? RFPs/proposals/pitches/inbound/outbound? Where have you found the sweet spot with respect to the length of an engagement?

The reason I ask - most of what you hear out there are stories of people being "freelancers" where the work is somewhat of a commodity (wordpress, webapps, etc) and they have to differentiate themselves by quality of work/communication. But it sounds like you are more on the specialized/niche side, with retainers and being a "consultant".

So far I've been tackling the "builder vs manager" problem with: joining small startups or starting my own. The good news is that the last 2 startups I've joined have hit rapid growth, but the (bad) news it that I keep getting pulled into management. I know that I can/should hold a stronger line and say "No, I want to be an IC", but it's hard when my boss pushes back that it'd be better for the company if I manage. None of this is complaining/whining per-se, but your solution is potentially a win-win where I can avoid the mis-aligned incentives (ie: holding the line on IC vs management).

My wife spends some time keeping my Linkedin account active, and I spend about 15 minutes a day maintaining a 'pipeline' spreadsheet and replying to inquiries about opportunities. If something gets to the introductory-call stage, I'll try and space them out so that there's no more than one per day. Generally I find that it takes about 30 days from introduction to closing a deal (sometimes longer). At the moment, I have multiple retainers and my plate is full, so I only do the minimum effort necessary to ensure that there's 4-6 opportunities somewhere in the pipeline, regardless of whether they close or not. Obviously if I weren't eating quite as well, I'd probably put at least double the effort into it.

As far as engagement length, my longest engagement is currently 6 months. Generally I don't have an issue with getting promoted into management as an independent contractor, as my loyalty is ultimately understood to be to my own company, and I make it very clear that I do not wish to become a manager. If those terms aren't acceptable, hey, I'm a contractor, everyone's welcome to terminate the relationship with zero hard feelings whatsoever, which is both an advantage in the current economic environment as well as the reason I need to maintain a pipeline of opportunities no matter how well things are going.

Do you do mostly staff augmentation or do you have a true speciality/niche which you get brought in to do?

I'm something of a generalist, but I prefer to do Typescript stuff with node.js and AWS Lambda, as well as React frontend stuff. I can do lots of other things and will even deliver C-Sharp and PHP components, but the thing about contracting is that you can usually end up doing only stuff that you want to do.

It's hilarious how you phrased "Fortunately I had an S-Corporation that lived in a binder on a shelf (and so can you for about $125 and a few mouse clicks)".

It's the weirdest thing to me this is how it can be but it's so real.

Since you seem to have the authority and the freedom, please ask for and hire a manager. As others pointed out, management is not next step to development. They are different skills.

I have switched back and forth and in my current role, I have completely given up on managing people. It is probably a step down in terms of pay, but I am more happier.

I would add that since you are "head of the department" I feel that your bosses trust you enough to run with you if you just tell them that what the department need is a full-time manager.

You are also in a very privileged position of defining the role of that manager. You like some managing tasks? You can keep them. You can even make it your hire, and hire the kind of manager you want to help you with these tasks. Since you can recruit yourself, that person will have some loyalty toward you.

I think you are in a very good position to build your dream job from scratch. Just do it my dude :)

Have you talked to upper management? If they value you and your work, they will probably allow you this (though likely with some cut in pay). My former manager actually went through the same issue. He was one of the earliest employees and as the company grew the CEO reached out to him to take the lead. He took it, but more out of wanting to help out. Fast forward 5 years since then and our company has grown from a 20-odd to 100+ employees, and found all the meetings draining. And since he is so awesome at his job prior to management, and our company is still going through some growing pains, people still count on him for some work.

He confided with me that he was beyond stressed and out of his element with management. He hates telling people what to do - he wants others to tell him what to do and he knows he's a rockstar at that. He finally said screw it and had a meeting with the heads, a heart-to-heart, and accepted to take a pay cut and basically self-demote himself. He did have a side hustle though, so the pay cut wasn't so bad for him.

I am in very similiar position right now, and I have decided to bite the bullet and drop all non individual contributor responsibilities. I'm not yet sure how it will go but it's my #1 priority to arrange it with Cxx. I know this was supposed to feel like "step up" but it's not who I am. I don't aspire to great managers, I respect people like Carmack. I want to be the best and most productive engineer, that's where I have most fun. If the money is similiar, that's what it's about.

Funny I would stumble on your post today as I'm currently in a very similar situation...

I've been a full-stack lead developer for a few years and find myself naturally slipping more and more towards management and client facing tasks.

At first I though it would be a good thing, a way for me to get out of my comfort zone and a logic career path.

Now I feel like my technical skills are wasted and my mental health is clearly worsening. I miss coding to be honest.

Right now I am at a point where I have the opportunity to move up and become a department head. The status would feel nice but I am more and more convinced I would regret it in the end... That's a tough choice.

Lots of stuff in the comments already about dual-track and external career options.

I'd add: can you hire a deputy who enjoys doing this?

* Ask for the next project management hire to be a true TPM, and try to pull someone who's working on something boring but is really interested in getting into your area of technology. Have them run all the Jira, summarization, execution of planning processes, comms & coordination. You'll still need to own hiring, still need to do a lot of people development work and still have to get involved in marketing & product strategy - but might get some leverage in internal pieces you don't like.

* Promote or hire another person who shows interest and aptitude in management, with the explicit plan for them to be your deputy and to take on some of the "tasks you don't really enjoy," especially if scoped to a specific area. Can you structure your work so someone else is responsible for 50% (or even more) of it? Can they do the RFP first-pass reviews, and even be responsible for pushing back on things in their area of responsibility? Can they manage some of your directs, and co-lead some of the above processes within their scope? There might be someone on the team who feels underutilized, wants more visibility, has strong relationships and is willing to learn. And if there's not - that's signal for you and your hiring process that maybe you've only hired folks like you; it may be time to have a broader set of folks on the team.

> I like sitting down and solving problems with code, getting a brief and build something cool.

It's a huge problem in tech that companies traditionally try to force engineers into management positions to allow their careers to keep growing. I have had more shitty managers who were just Individual Contributors who were told they needed to manage to succeed past a certain point.

> I tried telling myself that it's a childish and idealistic way of thinking and that it's all a part of career progression regardless of where you work at

The above, however, is no longer true. I work in a smallish tech company (~250ppl) that has gone through a major shift in the past few years to support the career advancement of Individual Contributors; the message being, "You don't need to be a shitty manager if you'd rather be a kick-ass engineer, and we will still provide paths for promotion and advancement."

As other comments have noted, it sounds like maybe your company is just not at a stage of their development that can support pure engineering career paths past a certain point. You do NOT have to be an unhappy manager to succeed in tech. And frankly during a time of economic contraction I feel safer as a valued IC than as a manager whose role could always be 'absorbed' by someone else's position during layoffs.

First off, there's this weird thing about management - "you're good at your job, let's give you a completely different job to do."

It sounds like your company is more worried about someone's work product than the person, which is a shitty thing to manage. You shouldn't have to "check on others to ensure they're working as they should." You shouldn't have to "..sit with someone for a couple hours to explains how I'd like things done, or having to fix something they've done wrong." That's a sign that you either micromanage, or you don't have good employees, or both. Daniel Pink's Drive is a good starting point - give people Autonomy, Purpose and a desire for Mastery, they will give you good work. It's not the be-all and end-all, but it's a good place to start.

I didn't like management, until my company offered a management course. Now I actually enjoy it. To me it's about making people the best versions of themselves. It's about learning to listen to people, and see the situation for what it really is rather than the words coming out of people's mouths. For the company, it's so you get the best work out of them, but "getting the best work out of them" doesn't have to be your focus as a manager.

There's a lot more I can say here, but for now I'd suggest reading this article which was on HN yesterday: https://longform.asmartbear.com/docs/fulfillment/ - and ask yourself if this is really what you want to be doing, regardless of any financial incentives to do so.

> there's this weird thing about management - "you're good at your job, let's give you a completely different job to do."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

Oh yeah. I have done this and left because I couldn't see a way out.

I'd suggest having a hard conversation with your leadership. You have to be prepared to leave, as there may not be a place for a senior (expensive) person who isn't leading teams. But you'll never know until you ask. I'd probably say something like "I'm not sure this role is a fit for me. My ideal role would be <describe role>. Do you think there's a way I can take on more of that kind of role at this company?"

It'll probably be months or years until you can transition internally, but you can start the conversation.

You might enjoy this blog post too: https://charity.wtf/2019/01/04/engineering-management-the-pe...

PS It isn't childish. I firmly believe that everyone should do a stint as a manager, if for no other reason than to have empathy for managers, but no one has an obligation to be a manager forever.

I've been in a similar position, a couple times in my career. I think its a natural trap to fall into when you are the kind of person that is good at bootstrapping projects to the point where they need a team to grow further, but not interested in management.

A newsletter article (not mine) that helped crystallize my thinking around this, and helped me to explain it to non-technical folks in my current organization is this one: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-leade.... Unfortunately its pay-walled, but Gergely (author) put some of the content in a tweet thread that is worth reading (https://twitter.com/gergelyorosz/status/1473353064358756352). If you look at the venn diagram posted in that thread, it sounds like you fall squarely in the "beware!!" zone.

If you are like me, you fall into that zone, at least in part, because you are clinging to the some technical duties that you could give up, but since they are the foundation of why you enjoy your job, refuse to do so. Understanding this and your own strengths and weaknesses clearly, can really help frame possible solutions for you. I would spend some time reflecting (and it sounds like you already have) about what you want out of this job and your career in general.

Perhaps you can propose to your management that you want to move into more of a "staff engineer" role. This may or may not work, and in the end, depending on the management at your company, you may have to move on to find what you want, but being clear about what that you want, is the first step in that direction.

It's definitely not childish to not want to be a manager, but beware trying to have it both ways - power without responsibility, autonomy without accountability etc. That would actually be childish.

As others have noted, the most straightforward thing to do here is to hire a manager to do most of what your current job entails and for you to move into senior/tech lead position. But if you do that and give up hiring, then you won't get a choice as to who to work with. If you give up supervising marketing's proposals, then you'll have to work to work on hair-brained ideas you could have veto'd in your current role. You give up mentoring/supervising junior folks and well, you'll still have to deal with their lower quality contributions, etc.

As you contemplate giving up this role, make sure you're ok giving up all the privileges that come with it as well.

If you do all the hiring yourself, what is to stop you hiring someone to do all the stuff you don't want to do ?

I am sure you could bring in an engineering manager, project manager, technical product manager or whatever you feel is the most appropriate job title to palm off the aspects of the job you are less keen on.

Five years is a long time. To be brutally honest, from what you are writing, chances are you will be burned out by then. It sounds like you’re in dire need for a change.

I quitted this week because of same reasons. I was working over 11 years in the hope growing of the company will let me do more jobs that I prefer (coding). When I was younger I was able to work longer and in the night to enyoy my work by coding. Nowadays, I don‘t want work 12 hours as manager and work nights for coding! I‘ve asked my boss several times to hire people for management and let me work as software developer, with no luck. The decision before I quit took too many years (waiting and waiting). Because the work and domain we are working is very interesting. Every task is a challenge to be solved, which made me happy to find solutions. Over the years, the ratio involved in coding decreased. Even I have quitted, I am still sad. I want work in this company even I have quitted. Now I am trying to adopt me to the new situation. I have no motivation to apply for new jobs. I think my quitting was too late. I hope I can find the motivation back again to start a new opportunity and work again.

I've worked as a manager of engineers for three different companies, and in 2 of those 3 times it followed the pattern of my manager being stretched too thin and asking me to take on management capabilities.

I figure at some time in the future I'll probably have to do it again, but like you, it's not the thing I enjoy. My current company has a non-management track, allowing me to stay as an individual contributor. Some of what you describe is really about getting sucked into management specifically, but some of what you describe is inherent to increasing in seniority. As a more senior individual contributor, I get to still focus on technical problems, but a lot of these technical problems are more about what is the right system to use for solving a problem, or how to get two systems to talk to each other, rather than writing the code for that myself. Also, as you gain seniority more of what you do is necessarily going to be giving advice and feedback to others - but as a more senior IC, most of the feedback I find myself giving is about how to approach technical problems rather than dealing with HR headache type feedback.

It sounds like the company you work for is relatively new. It might be worth raising the concept of a dedicated IC track with your manager. That being said, it might simply be impractical for the company to move you to that position until it has grown a bit more.

There are several posts here recommending you talk to management and ask for your role to change while you remain in position. This can work, and may be worth pursuing - however it's not always appropriate. Some organisations will not be willing to make exceptions for you. They'll fear a domino effect where others make similar requests; some may frame your request as shirking, since managing people is part of the role; HR may need to get involved if your role spec changes; etc etc. Basically, it might cascade into a Big Deal. Only you can know if your organisation would be amenable to such a proposal.

Regardless, you should start looking for alternative places for work. If you broach this conversation the cat is out of the bag. If management are supportive, great. And if not, you're prepared. It's a good mental and professional exercise anyway, and may help you work out what a perfect role would look like.

A hopefully encouraging note: it's totally normal to find yourself in a role that involves work you don't enjoy, and it's totally normal to make changes to improve things. You can do it :) Good luck!

A couple of years ago I was offered a team lead position after having been in development for 12 years (I regularly took on various other tasks/roles as well, that's how I got on their radar). It seemed like the natural step to take responsibility, grow, stretch, yadayada, you know what they say about personal/career goals. I completely underestimated just how much my intrinsic motivation would revolt against tasks that just don't fit, even though I could perform well enough and was commended for how I did as a manager both from my team and others. I went back to development a year later and didn't regret it. *)

One of the lightbulb moments for me was when I talked to a product owner and said that I just don't enjoy coordinating people/opinions/requirements (+ everything you listed) she replied that that's exactly what she finds enjoyable/fascinating. I understood then that there are simply limits to what you can "become" (in your essence) and I had to accept it. So I'm still just a "simple" backend engineer, I leave my mark in ways that don't involve a job title, often beyond the scope of my team. There are still moments when I observe managers and think "I can do that, too, and maybe even better, maybe I should...", but I quickly go back to remembering that I tried it once and don't need to prove anything to anybody anymore.

It sounds like you've endured this misalignment between your passions and your job for some time (how long exactly?) - don't do this to yourself unless you have some unavoidable pressures. The vested shares you mention, really worth it?

*) It was not at all this straight-forward, of course, I went through tremendous self-doubt, i.e. "why isn't this working?", just giving you the summary.

There's no shame in this and it's ridiculously common. You have to tell your boss, who clearly values you, but first decide whether you want to try to fix this yourself or you want your boss to fix it.

Fix it yourself: you stay in roughly your current position but you hire someone to take on the tasks you don't like. Sort of like an assistant manager or whatever you want to call it. It needs to be someone with some technical and some managerial skills. This approach will still leave you with some stress and responsibility though.

Have your boss fix it: say you're a great developer but a mediocre manager, and everyone will be happier and more productive if they find someone else to take on this role. You can help interview for the role, or suggest someone else in the company for it. You'll remain a senior technical leader but will relinquish control and responsibility.

> I don't like sitting with someone for a couple hours to explains how I'd like things done, or having to fix something they've done wrong.

I don't think you'll want to give this part up completely though. If you don't do this, eventually the code base will become full of code you don't like, and even though you're back to the work you like, your technical satisfaction will decrease.

In your shoes I would have an earnest conversation with the top people on the team, and see if they have any aspirations for management.

Once watched a new position grow from a manager who wanted more hands-on time and an engineer who wanted to see what it was like to lead: the engineer became the new manager, and the old manager became the 'team lead'.

IMO it worked great because now I had two people to go to for specific concerns: technical stuff to the team lead, HR stuff to the manager.

> it's all a part of career progression regardless of where you work at

Very much not true. It might be where _you_ work, but it's not universal, and decreasing as time goes by.

What you're describing goes _way_ beyond what I think most would consider to be the responsibilities of a Lead Developer.

I wouldn't say your attitude is childish- you're allowed to have personal preferences. I don't think you have to give up on having development be your profession, although you could maybe "scratch that itch" with projects outside work if climbing the ladder is ultimately more important than doing what you'd prefer.

Not all technical people have the temperament for management. Some do, but many do not, and nothing you can do can really change that for them. It's similar to looking at something like Sales - some people are born to sell, other people will never excel at it (I am in that boat!).

It sounds like you are one of those people who's brain is not wired for management. That's OK. In an ideal world, you should seek out a company that supports career tracks for pure-technical roles (like the old Bell Labs did).

The problem of course is that it's not an ideal world. And that's where you have to dig in deep and decide what's right for you. Some people are able to stick it out and vest and manage to be so-so managers. For other people, that would be soul crushing.

The start is to be honest to yourself about who you are, what you enjoy, and what your goals are. And be realistic. If you shoot for the "perfect" job you may end up unemployed or miserable in serial job hunts. Find out what your "really good" job looks like, and what warts you can live with and what are deal breakers, and evaluate that against life stuff like finances, family, retirement, etc.

I've also more or less organically grown into a management kind of role at my previous job, and I regret some of that. I did miss out on a lot of experience I could have had building things. At some point I worked hard to return to a developer role again, which partly succeeded, but this was also a somewhat larger company.

For my current job, I intentionally applied for a developer role, not a management one. What really helps is to be part of a team which has a decent lead - I knew from the interview that was the case at my current job.

If you don't work 'under' a decent enough lead, you end up picking up the pieces and doing his/her work. So my number one advice would be to make sure you end up working for a strong lead. If you want to stay where you are, you need to have a conversation, but not just about changing roles but also about hiring a lead to take your place. Otherwise I doubt its going to work.

My second point of advice is more of a reassurance: it is not childish to not want to be a manager, its actually very mature to recognize that this is not what makes you happy. I see it as a different job, not a higher one. Good tech managers probably need some tech background, but they don't have to be really good developers - just enough to understand their job as managers. But a good developer isn't by extension a good manager, that is really another skillset.

Somehow becoming a manager has been really sticky for me, you have to work to get it off. Maybe this is because I ended up taking responsibility where others didn't or couldn't, and then other people around me started calling that leadership and thus I became a manager even if I didn't want to.

Now I do understand why managers are getting paid more, its hard and sometimes stressful work to be honest.

It depends on if you want to continue to grow your income above inflation. As a salaried employee, to grow your income (salary - we're not talking about flipping houses), you need to be 'promoted'. Promotion works by taking responsibilites beyond your current role. For a lead dev, those additional responsibilities are things like people (clients and more junior technical staff), operational (making sure that someone is there when the system falls over at 3 a.m.), and others (e.g. taking on responsibility for information security, compliance). In a small business, the biggest need is for people-project-task management.

Assuming you don't want to suck it up and keep doing management you have three options:

* You can choose not to be 'promoted', where you'll be happy in your job, but your salary stagnates.

* You can hoose to move to a larger organisation, where you can be 'promoted' and add significant value without all the management stuff that you don't enjoy, but those jobs are in short supply and competitive.

* You can keep job-hopping as a senior dev, and keep pushing your salary up with each jump.

Do you like making stuff? Do you like arranging how stuff gets made? Different skill sets and rewards for each position. For my career, having the wrong role was ultimately unsatisfying - while it was neat knowing what was going on at some altitude, I went back to the keyboard as I preferred making stuff.

Ultimately, life is short. Work to get the resources to do what you like, not just to keep score.

I have a friend who works for a Fortune 100 company. He was moved into a management position where he was managing a team within the IT org. Like you, he absolutely hated it and realized he much preferred being an individual contributor. It took him a long time to get out of his position and back into an individual contributor position, but he made it clear that it was either that or he would quit. Well, he is to valuable for them to let go, so they gave in and let him move back, eventually. Though he says that they still try to rope him into management meetings to get his input, but he refuses because he doesn't want to be pulled back into management.

I think of it as the fighter pilot problem. People become fighter pilots because they want to fly planes, not because they want to sit behind a desk managing other pilots. But, if you stick around long enough, the military will try to push you into a desk management position. But what you really want to do is keep flying.

If you loved your job before, be honest with your management how you feel. Explain to them you really want to do, and what the final outcome is likely to be if you can't find joy in your position again.

A situation I was in was similar, going from an Eng to a Lead Eng role for a group of sysadmins. It was something I thought I wanted, but not for the right reasons. I wanted more control over the environment, more freedom to build what I wanted. The amount of time I'd spend doing people-related things was grossly underestimated and it became a pain point for me.

It ended up being that I only wanting to work on building things, but not building up people. It became a chore to get through the majority of management work, only to stay late to work on things that interested me.

I ended up leaving for another company, and things have worked out well enough, but there is some regret in my leaving. It was something I should worked with my management on, and been more transparent about.

You just don't want to be in the position you are in now to start. I am currently in a similar position that you are in. Where you get spread really thin due to your specialist role in just about anything. If you don't want to be in management long term you need to let them know that and get your role changed. I find it is hard to do this though because as long as you are at the same company you will always get requests that are unique to you and distracting. The only way to truly dismiss that is to leave.

Spending a lot of time doing things like you are doing causes your marketable development skills to decay over time. If you did spend the 5 years of your life like that, and decided you wanted to move on and wanted a staff engineer/lead position you would be up against people that are doing mostly software development most of the time.

I actually enjoy interviewing, mentoring, being involved in discussion of direction and tech and decision making however I despise most of the HR related "paper pushing" tasks and the often pointless seeming rigor around a lot of it.

Minor example, struggling this morning (password fails, no reset email is appearing, etc.) with getting into our damn accounting system to "approve" (by checking a box) some training expenses that I already approved anyway. Little stuff like that but also big stuff like the specific questions that need to be submitted for a performance review (or the multiple meetings associated with such a review). I'm earning more money than I have ever earned in my life and finally have a chance at funding a normal retirement (I came to this career late) but there is little joy in my work life.

It seems to me like you have a very clear idea of what you like and what you don't like. You also seem to be self-aware enough that you notice that your mental health is suffering.

When I come to similar realizations, I make a career transition. Speaking personally, in one role I found myself managing a team of contract software developers in a different time zone. I didn't enjoy the extra communication overhead, quality issues, and the feeling of not being able to establish an interpersonal relationship with them. When I learned that our senior management was going to hire a team of contractors again I left the position. Leaving this position resulted in a pay cut but the benefit for my mental health was huge.

Sounds like you need to get another job. Nothing wrong with that.

You could try to communicate this to your existing boss, but it's likely to be much simpler, and more guaranteed, to just find a job that is what you want.

Many companies have a dedicated technical track that runs in parallel with the management track, specifically for cases like yours (which are very common)

You could suggest adopting that kind of structure at your current company? Or otherwise, you may just have to look for it elsewhere. But your feelings are valid, and you're definitely not locked into management across the whole industry, even if you end up having to pick between this and the other things you like about your job

But it sounds like you're really unhappy, and you should definitely listen to that feeling

I can relate to you. This is me currently. I ended up transitioning into a leadership position with a dev team as well, and I don't love it either. It's a lot of 1-on-1s and stakeholders. So many meetings.

I don't have any shares, but I just found a new job in a smaller shop as a dev. I know that's what I want to do, so I just went for it. It's slightly lower paying than my current job, but I know I'll be happier. Honestly, if I were you, I would ask them to hire a Manager and if that doesn't go, I would look elsewhere.

There's nothing better than learning what you love to do and then focusing on it. The absence of doing work you love gave you the experience you needed to know what you don't want to do. Management isn't right for everyone and isn't a logical step for many. With that given, you also don't need to rely entirely on your full time job to do work you enjoy. Hobby coding is a favorite pass-time for thousands of people. You get to build what interests of you.

I, unfortunately, have to disagree with some of the people here suggesting being honest with management. Unless your management is surprisingly open minded, you'd probably need to look at joining another company.

People have a very hard time understanding the idea of wanting a "demotion". Even saying no to a promotion to management can permanently damage your relationship, as many people have the idea that good employees will be go-getters seeking promotion.

I ran medium sized teams for a long time and decided I didn't want to go that direction. I'm much happier as a regular SWE again, maybe looking after 1-2 people. However there are some downsides; The money isn't as good, you will get managed by someone younger and less experienced than yourself which can be frustrating. Finally looking for a job as a 40/50 YO you feel much harder to get hired than a 25/30 YO hotshot that everyone seems to want.

I've had two iron rules for the last 24 years:

- Never work with jerks (either boss, customers, coworkers...) - Never be anyone's manager

It has worked out great! I've gotten to work on a steady stream of hard problems, working right at the middle of what I'm good at, what I love, and what people are willing to pay for. And for/with great people.

The guarantee you have in choosing to write code is that you get to write code!

Those who find a way to reshape their identity and expectations around work are the ones who succeed in management and reap the financial rewards.

You must decide if this is what you want, else have grace on yourself and let go of the financial upside to spend more of your time doing hands-on work.

If you were building a house, would you rather be the crew chief or the electrician?

"I tried telling myself that it's a childish and idealistic way of thinking and that it's all a part of career progression regardless of where you work at..."

It's most definitely not! Many seem to think it is, because of perceived status ("how are you still a developer in your 40s?!"). Be whatever you want to be, not what your current boss wants you to be.

Delegate. You don't like hiring? Ask people in the org who wants to do it and take more responsibility. Don't want to worry about capacity? Hire an engineering manager who will take care of it (or again, maybe someone in the org wants to pick it up). Focus on things where you can bring the most value to the company.

If you've been there for a while it could be worth taking a sabbatical of a few months to clear your head and decide what really makes you happy. In that time your company will have adjusted to your absence and you and they will be in a better position to define your new role without having to fix the gap that you left.

I became an engineering manager for a few years. I swung back into an individual contributor role. Turns out I don’t like management either.

I was good at it. I was being groomed to take on a CTO role. But it wasn’t for me. Programming is hard. But for me people are harder.

If it’s possible try going back to the role you like and see if they’ll hire a manager.

I have seen two team leaders to step down from their position. In one case to be developer in different team and in other case he stayed in team where he was.

I had friends who said they don't want to be teamleader when changing companies, tho I did not worked with them.

So, the point is, telling that you don't want to be lead is an option.

Been there, got out.

I recommend to listen to some of Cal Newport's "lifestyle centric career planning" podcast episodes on this. I basically followed similar ideas a decade ago and have been very happy with the decision.

Your thinking is not at all childish or idealistic. It's important to straighten these sort of questions out.

Lead developer should not be about management. It seems your company confuses your role with project management?

My role as lead dev is picking tech for solutions, maintaining in-house software and only sometimes I get to talk to a client. I only get invited to interviews but don't have to set them up.

Director-level here. It's great that you gave it a shot, but management isn't for everyone! In fact, when most engineers come to me and say "I want to be a manager," the first thing I say is "No, you don't."

Not in a judgmental way, and not in a mean way, but more as a warning system to say "You want more money or responsibility, and management is one of many ways to get those things."

The other thing I say is, "At some point during your management career, _you will stop writing code on a daily basis_." If you like writing code more than anything else, this probably isn't the right role for you!

We then spend the rest of the conversation talking about what their goals are, and how we can get them there. Some folks are insistent that they want to be a manager, and we figure out a path to do that, and some folks are sufficiently deterred by the things I said.

It's not that I don't want you to be a manager, it's that I want you to have a job that you are excited about, and for _most_ engineers, management is soul-draining. They want to write code and solve problems, not sit in endless meetings!

Because of this, I personally have zero compunction about anyone who becomes a manager and then comes to me and says, "This isn't for me. I hate it. Can I go back to being an IC?"

No problem at all.

So with all of that said, management is NOT "a part of career progression." You do NOT have to go into management. Most tech companies have two tracks for career progression: technical and management. At most companies, a Staff Engineer is the equivalent of a Manager, and a Principal engineer is the equivalent of a Director. You can continue to lead teams in a technical fashion without losing your entire week to meetings and people management. It's possible. Your current company may not have that structure, but a lot of companies do!

If you feel comfortable doing this, I would go to your boss and say, "Hey, I don't love this management thing. I think I would have a bigger impact as an IC. Can we work on a transition plan to get me back to full-time IC work? I am happy to help hire my backfill."

This is very, very normal. Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong.

Do not feel bad for yourself, do not feel like you failed. It's simply a bad fit, and you are looking for a way to improve your own happiness and your own career path.

Good luck!

> So with all of that said, management is NOT "a part of career progression."

Legally, in order to be able to do certain things in a corporation you need to be a manager, director, or VP (i.e. sign contracts). A "Staff" is a made up term that is not recognized by any legal system or secretary of state, and that person will never be able fulfill vital corporate functions. Someone who is not a manager will never be privy to the full picture on people management, corporate finance, and so on due to issues with legal liability and corporate law.

I understand that there are smart people who want to "Do management without any of the responsibilities" but the real world doesn't work that way. If the ultimate rung of the career ladder is "Business Owner", management is definitely a required step on that journey.

I hesitate to respond, because I'm generally not interested in arguing on the internet. I'm also not entirely sure if you're just being pedantic or not, but IMO this is a pretty narrow view of "career progression."

You don't need to manage people to level up in technical skills and leadership, and you certainly don't need to sign contracts to lead a project. There are plenty of ways to get more money and more responsibility that don't involve eventually becoming the CEO.

I personally have three Principal Engineers that work for me. They don't sign contracts, but I can give them a project and they'll do all of the technical designs and mentoring and development, while my managers can focus on more people-related things, such as inter-team collaboration, daily rituals, performance reviews, promotions, engaging with team members to keep up morale and productivity, and more. And for what it's worth, my managers are not authorized to sign contracts, either -- but they're still managers!

> Legally, in order to be able to do certain things in a corporation you need to be a manager, director, or VP (i.e. sign contracts).

(1) you probably mean “e.g.”, not “i.e.”, since you said “some things”, but “sign contracts” is just one thing. Latin abbreviations may be convenient compared to writing out full English words, but they aren’t interchangable.

(2) In either case, this is wrong, since even with “e.g.” it would require “sign cobtracts” to be a valid example, and its not. To sign contracts for a corporation, you need authority from the board, which it is free to give to anyone (even a non-employee). There are a few individuals or combinations that people can safely assume have such authority as long as they don’t have specific negative information, but it is much smaller than the list you provide, and not germane to who can have signing authority.

It’s really irrelevant that a board can give signing permission to Joe Blow - Sr. Wizard III, because the counterparty would never accept such a contract. No bank, for example, is going to write a note to a corporation that unless the person in question is clearly an officer. I only mention this because I’m on my third corporation serving as an officer.

Ignoring the pedantic bits an above, an employee will never completely climb the career ladder without a management role. You can pretend that corporate officers don’t exist, or come up with an arcane loophole that doesn’t reflect reality. It’s not really how corporations are run.

> It’s really irrelevant that a board can give signing permission to Joe Blow - Sr. Wizard III, because the counterparty would never accept such a contract

For significant contracts, they’ll either want proof of the existence and scope of signing authority or, without that, accept only the specific officers that the law will bind the corporation for as long as the counterparty doesn't have negative knowledge, which (in CA) is:

Acting individually: no one at all, not even the Chairman/President.

Acting together: one each of either the Chairman, President, or any Vice Preisdent and the Secretary, Chief Financial Officer, or any Assistant Secretary or Assistant Treasurer. (See, Cal. Corporations Code, § 313)

I suppose its possible that some counterparties may take risks on less significant contracts by presuming lesser titles have some signing authority without specific evidence (why, though?), but I can’t imagine that anyone whose signature alone isn’t presumptively valid under applicable state law to bind the company would ever be preferred on the basis of their title versus someone with a less impressive title and documented signing authority.

> Ignoring the pedantic bits an above, an employee will never completely climb the career ladder without a management role.

I think you are confusing a “career ladder” (of which there tend to be multiple within an institution, including, in many areas, parallel “manager” and “specialist” tracks in the same domain) with the organizational heirarchy (of which there is one, and where the very top is definitively a manager). Yes, you will never be a CEO without being in a management role, that is trivially true.

I have the opposite question. Developers who moved into management and enjoyed it. What were some early signs that this move was right for you? Did you always want to be a manager? Do you miss coding?

I think this would merit a different thread, with some contextual example to turn it into a better discussion.

I don't know about advice, but I've been in a similar position multiple times over the last 30+ years.

If anyone wants to hire a CTO who can still actually make things, I'm here.

@mkarliner@mastodon.modern-industry.com

I really appreciate you sharing this. It solidifies how much I love doing lead work. I do not enjoy line management but I LOVE servant leadership and operations of a team / org.

There are many, many, many tech companies who have way way way way too many people who want to be managers but not any who want to stay technical. Find one of them.

Keep in mind that just because you're good at management doesn't mean you have to do it professionally. Stay purely technical if that's what you enjoy!

Consider hiring an executive coach. Sometimes things we don't enjoy are opportunities for growth. I worked with one and it unlocked a lot of stuff for me.

Hire a manager to do the work you do not like. Or hire people that can manage themselves - like people who have experience running their own business.

Stay in coding.