True story. I was a manager at Sun for 7+ years. I was on the original J2EE team and by any criteria you like, I was pretty successful as a manager (I have no

True story. I was a manager at Sun for 7+ years. I was on the original J2EE team and by any criteria you like, I was pretty successful as a manager (I have no problem lining up an initial interview based on my resume). In 2006, I decided to leave Sun. Layoffs every 3 months was no fun and it was pretty stressful working so hard to protect my team (I am very proud to say that no one who worked for me got layed off). I hadn't programmed since 1999 and the coding world had changed dramatically. I discovered that my management record was too good for someone who couldn't answer the basic programming questions. I couldn't get the Director position at Google, Amazon, or pretty much anywhere. For that matter, I couldn't get the engineering position or the Senior Management position either. The interview usually ended very quickly. Today, I am very happy as a PHP engineer at a start up. Best decision I've ever made. I might go back into management if the start up gets big enough. My lesson from this experience is that to have credibility as an engineering manager in this internet world, you need to keep your edge. Otherwise, you better be good at networking.