The issue with being an EM is that it's a totally different job than being an engineer. There's overlap as you get to staff+ but there's also a lot of things th

The issue with being an EM is that it's a totally different job than being an engineer. There's overlap as you get to staff+ but there's also a lot of things that don't overlap. It's also, when done properly, a fully non-technical role. In general trying to still be technical will make you a bad EM that is hated by the team. Directly you will have very little short term impact except occasionally preventing disasters. The impact will be through your team and you'll be spending most of your time preventing future issues for the team. So it's very medium term and indirect impact if done well. Your team may respect you but they probably won't as much as you think they should given the effort you're putting in. The rest of the company may respect you but will still try to use you as a punching bag every so often. In the end you're the shit umbrella for the team. In my experience as an EM it's almost expected that you have the self-confidence to not need much external validation.