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Start looking outside your company for a job. You will likely need to settle for lower pay if you want to move to a management position. It's obvious that your

Start looking outside your company for a job. You will likely need to settle for lower pay if you want to move to a management position. It's obvious that your current bosses think that you can't manage a team. Also just because you're excellent at your job it does not mean you will be an excellent manager. Great managers don't need to be technical wizards but they need to know how to evaluate people and be able to make the best decisions from the information your team gives you. Managers are best at managing people and making sure you get the best from the team and you're able to manage your bosses too. Which means that if they ask you to acomplish X then you will accoplish X plus more. Techies believe that the best way to management is to show how great they know their area of expertise. No, that won't get you into management. You need to show that you can get people to do what you want, inspire them, and as you get up the ladder you can manage a budget and all the other parts of a particular department. You will also notice that managers can be jerks but when they speak to a team they come across as very charasmatic. It's a talent that can be learned. You need to start learning it. So start by knowing your audience. Good luck!

greenyoda 7y ago
> It's obvious that your current bosses think that you can't manage a team. That's not obvious at all to me. It's also possible that they think he's such a good developer that he's more valuable to them as a developer than as a manager. > Techies believe that the best way to management is to show how great they know their area of expertise. No, that won't get you into management. That's how I got into management: I was a good developer who showed a lot of initiative in getting stuff done, and someone higher up noticed my work and pushed me into a management position. Most of the technical management positions in my company got filled that way. I'm not saying that this is the ideal way to find managers, but it seems to be common, in my experience. (I'm no longer a manager; I decided after several years that I was happier as a developer.)
- nilkn 7y ago
  Management is a very high leverage activity, hiring good managers externally is really hard (harder than hiring developers), and my experience as a manager (and manager of managers) is most developers don't want to do it (your post is an example of that!). So, if a developer is really enthusiastic about wanting to take on a management role and is being turned down, I think there are three reasonable conclusions: (1) there is no management position available; (2) this person is a very senior developer (staff or higher); or (3) there's not much confidence this person's skill set would transfer into managing a team successfully. (1) doesn't seem to be the case here, and while I can't rule out (2) there's also nothing in the OP's post that suggests he or she is in such a high-level engineering position.

greenyoda 7y ago

> It's obvious that your current bosses think that you can't manage a team. That's not obvious at all to me. It's also possible that they think he's such a good developer that he's more valuable to them as a developer than as a manager. > Techies believe that the best way to management is to show how great they know their area of expertise. No, that won't get you into management. That's how I got into management: I was a good developer who showed a lot of initiative in getting stuff done, and someone higher up noticed my work and pushed me into a management position. Most of the technical management positions in my company got filled that way. I'm not saying that this is the ideal way to find managers, but it seems to be common, in my experience. (I'm no longer a manager; I decided after several years that I was happier as a developer.)

nilkn 7y ago
Management is a very high leverage activity, hiring good managers externally is really hard (harder than hiring developers), and my experience as a manager (and manager of managers) is most developers don't want to do it (your post is an example of that!). So, if a developer is really enthusiastic about wanting to take on a management role and is being turned down, I think there are three reasonable conclusions: (1) there is no management position available; (2) this person is a very senior developer (staff or higher); or (3) there's not much confidence this person's skill set would transfer into managing a team successfully. (1) doesn't seem to be the case here, and while I can't rule out (2) there's also nothing in the OP's post that suggests he or she is in such a high-level engineering position.