Welcome to the paradoxical dichotomy in IT: In order to be a top notch (line/product/project) manager, you need to have relevant experience in engineering itsel

Welcome to the paradoxical dichotomy in IT: In order to be a top notch (line/product/project) manager, you need to have relevant experience in engineering itself. Also, the higher value for any company is engineers that are great at multiplying themselves by keeping a whole team aligned with the organization's goals. But in order to be a great engineer, you need have lots of curiosity and an affinity to tinkering, none of which you'll get higher up. And on top of that, engineering expertise has a half life of just a few years nowadays, so engineering managers without at least some hands-on exposure to recent technology get less valuable over time. One of the better approaches I've seen is that some of the best people I've ever worked with, they've jumped back and forth between manager and engineer multiple times in their career (even Bill gates did, famously). The key here is to step up while stepping down: Go to a lower level position — but in a smaller and better org with a better culture and build something up from scratch. That way of spiral learning lets you get better as a manager as well as an engineer, when you miss the benefits of the other side too much, just change it every few years. It's the path I've chosen myself as well. The second path is side projects. I have kids and little time for that right now, but the other threads are covering that topic a whole lot better. The third path to stay sharp is doing some prototypes, tracer bullets and related stuff yourself every once in a while. I enjoy that as well. Just don't do the mistake of putting yourself in the critical path ever or neglecting your core duties over tinkering.