It's usually the opposite. The pressure is actually stronger when you're a manager. As an individual contributor you're not involved in a bunch of meetings, whe

It's usually the opposite. The pressure is actually stronger when you're a manager. As an individual contributor you're not involved in a bunch of meetings, where management discusses issues, priorities, hot topics etc. It's harder to give a status update as a manager on a task rather than the person handling the task. And you're not talking to your teammates about your mini task in your project at a standup, you have to report to people who have more impact on the future of the company than you do. So any wrong info and the concequences are huge. A typical breakdown would be: - %30 about coaching your team members, hiring, 1-1, career path - %50 status update to upper management, talking about issues and stressful stuff - %20 hands-on Being an Individual Contributor is actually more enjoyable in a long run when you look at the salary gap... not worth it. Last but not least, interviewing for a manager position is really painful when you're coming from the outside. People often have a lot of frustration due to their previous managers who screwed things up. But they had to stay quite for a while. So when it comes to judging their future direct report, there's no filter. It won't cost me my job if I tell people you're not the right candidate/manager for our team during an interview briefing. So finding a manager job is super tough. You'll have to stick with the same employer for a while or you'll have to go back down as an IC, land a job, then work your way back up to a manager role. How painful is that?