Couple random pieces of advice: 1. Learn management, even if you're never going to use it. Everybody in this world has a manager. The more you know about the j

Couple random pieces of advice: 1. Learn management, even if you're never going to use it. Everybody in this world has a manager. The more you know about the job, the better integrated you can be with others, either as a manager yourself or working with managers. That 3-way diagram? Holds true at the developer level as well. 2. Management ain't programming. When I learned to fly airplanes on instruments, the toughest thing was realizing that I had to rely on the gauges and fight my natural instincts. Likewise, if you've been a super-cool coder for many years, you're going to have to give up those coding and architecture instincts and learn people management ones. I see far too many extremely smart people try building and managing systems of people just as if they were computers. Wrong answer. 3. Ambition is fine. Being a jerk is not. If you like managing, you need to realize that it's always a gut check to make sure you're doing the right thing, and you very well may end up in a position where it is better to leave your current company and go play somewhere else than it is to continue. That sucks, but there's a difference between being a cog in a machine and being a professional. Be a professional or don't do it.