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43 this year. Spent last 8 years as a manager now back to being a developer and enjoying it. Yes I liked mentoring people and making decisions. I never entirely
by mmsimanga 8y ago
43 this year. Spent last 8 years as a manager now back to being a developer and enjoying it. Yes I liked mentoring people and making decisions. I never entirely left coding I still spent about 20% of my time on code.
If I were to put one reason down why I don't mind being a coder I think being a manager can be mentally exhausting. You need to remain positive for your reports even if you don't agree with decisions made higher up. Too many things are not really in your control but you are responsible for them. Maybe that was just my experience. I hated letting my team down.
- tempotemporary 8y ago> I think being a manager can be mentally exhausting. I was thinking of management as a way to escape downsides of working as a programmer. For ex.: a responsibility for bugs that I put in product, failure to deliver on time, rush to finish before deadline and all other stuff that burns me out.
- mmsimanga 8y agoThere is some truth to what you are saying but that's not the complete picture to being a manager. You might shed some responsibilities but you pick up a whole lot more. The comment in this thread describes it better than I described being a manager https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19407800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19407800 You need to ask yourself how much you like mentoring people, spending time in meetings, playing the politics ... because those are the roles you pick up. Managers still have to explain why bugs are in the system even though they didn't write any code. I honestly think some people are wired for being managers and some are not. Trouble is some companies pay managers more and let them run riot with over developers.