I switched from managing a team of 20ish to becoming a Solutions Engineer (other job titles are Sales Engineer, Solutions Architect). It's pretty common to see

I switched from managing a team of 20ish to becoming a Solutions Engineer (other job titles are Sales Engineer, Solutions Architect). It's pretty common to see ex-managers in this role because you still need to deal with people, but it's generally a much less stressful job than being a manager. You never need to lay anyone off, and you don't have to worry about others dropping the ball as much. The way I found the role was through a hacker news job posting, however, my strategy was to focus on jobs where my industry, non-technical experience would be helpful. In this situation, I used to manage a team of engineers for an online virtual events company, so I applied for a job where I'd be helping the sales team sell to other online virtual events companies. Because I used to be the customer (as the manager), I had a lot of emotional contexts that someone who hadn't worked in that industry before didn't have. I got pretty much the same pay too. There will always be a shortage of engineers who are happy to talk on the phone with a customer.