Just remember, becoming a manager will not necessarily lead to more automation, in fact in most cases I have seen in my career is it leads to even less autonomy

Just remember, becoming a manager will not necessarily lead to more automation, in fact in most cases I have seen in my career is it leads to even less autonomy. (and in many cases more unhappiness) Middle management sucks because you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. You are expected to produce results by top management, but can't produce those results yourself, instead you are to cajole those results out of your team. That is the ultimate in powerless, the unreasonable demands from the top and the stupid developers constantly not working fast / good / hard enough to produce those results. And constant firefighting...