Management is not a promotion

Going into Management from an Individual Contributor is not a promotion, but a change of profession. For some people, this change could be irreversible, especially in the software engineering field.

Often I see on LinkedIn and CVs that such a job switch is described as a “Promotion”. It might feel like that when that happens for the first time in your career. A new fancy title, a new set of responsibilities, a lot of excitement. It felt to me that way as well!

Later, after a few months, you realize that you need a whole new set of skills to be successful in your new role. If you are brave enough, you will embark on a learning journey. Learning from your peers, if any. Learning from books. Learning from courses.

If you are successful and did the transition right, you will notice, that you are not doing anymore what you loved to do before. Now 1:1s, planning, everyday communication, caring and serving for others, resolving conflict, hiring, and overall managing will take your whole day.

My point is, that it is a completely different set of skills. It will take eventually all of your workday time. And you will start to forget your IC skill set, like software engineering. Even though a manager won’t be able to contribute as IC anymore, a constant effort should be made to keep up with the technology. Because…

Every manager in tech should have a strong tech background.

If you are lucky, you start executing your new role even more. Then if there is a fit for you, congratulations. But if you feel overwhelmed, burned out, annoyed and only looking for some free time to dive deep into an interesting technical problem, then maybe that change isn’t what you have expected.

Why would you keep pushing in a direction that just looks prestigious, but makes you feel miserable?

Is there a possibility to combine both worlds and make it work well? I think there is!

I find it so important to understand for many people, that going back to the tech path, to what you love doing, is not a “demotion”, and not a failure. It is already a huge success only because you have tried. Especially if you did it for many years and succeded in that new role. Many people won’t even try to be a manager.

Acquired experience is already a huge win and a valuable addition to any individual contributor's career. This experience is valuable for technical leadership roles, such as tech lead, staff, and principal engineer. Yes, these roles are a technical career progression path and are not people management roles. But they do contribute to each other a lot.

Usually, there are 2 default career paths in technical companies. They could vary depending on the company size. F.e. in startups it is easy to jump over several titles immediately on a higher one. That could be a great opportunity for rapid learning. For software engineers, paths look approximately like this and could vary:

junior → middle → senior software engineer

Managerial path: →Team lead →Engineering manager→Senior EM→Head of Engineering→Director of engineering→VP of Engineering→CEO

Technical path:

→could be more SW engineer levels 1,2…10. → Tech Lead or → Staff Engineer →Principal engineer →or it could be a direct jump to coding CTO or Software Architect

Some companies have even more unique titles to provide even bigger career growth variety, f.e. Expert Engineer or adding a Senior prefix to Staff, etc.

There is good news. The way back exists! And there is also a “back and forth” way. Many people have experienced this manager to IC and IC to a manager swing not once in their career, but several times. The same goes for my experience. You are not bound to stay in one role. And if you got “promoted”, and want a change, you are not stuck with that “Promotion”. Don’t let the fake widely accepted perception of the career ladder define what is good for you. Progress and experience are all that matter.

These are options to combine both paths and not give up the craft you love

1. Getting into Freelancing or Consulting. There you can clearly define your service offering, what you do, and what you don’t do. The only downside is that all the business-related activities, such as sales and marketing could take a significant portion of your time.
2. Stay on the Technical leadership path. In these roles, you are expected to manage a maximum of 20-30% of the time, and this is not pure people management. The difference is that the topics and problems you will face are different. The tech lead role will still be mostly around tech.

TL;DR If you want to get “Promoted”, to stop being a professional IC and fully emerge into the new manager profession - go for it. If you don’t want to give up your craft for a fancy title change or have tried and decided that is not what you want - keep growing in the field you love doing.