Software Engineer or Manager? Things to Know Before Making the Switch
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful video, the speaker shares their personal journey transitioning from a Software Development Engineer to a Software Development Manager and back again. They delve into the decision-making process, the stark differences in day-to-day responsibilities, and the pros and cons of each role. Highlighting the importance of team culture, the challenges of constant interruptions, and the loss of hands-on technical work, the speaker provides valuable insights for those contemplating a similar career shift. Their experience underscores the value of trying different paths to understand one's true passions and the significant growth opportunities that come with stepping out of one's comfort zone.
Takeaways
- 😀 The speaker transitioned from a software development engineer to a manager and then back to an engineer, providing insights into both roles.
- 🔧 There are two ways to become a software manager: directly request the role or take the lead in a team without a manager, demonstrating management skills.
- 🏗️ The speaker's transition into management was natural, as they joined a team in need of organization and process building.
- 📚 The importance of training and resources was highlighted, including company-specific training and the book 'Managing the Unmanageable'.
- 🌐 A manager's day is filled with meetings and interruptions, contrasting with the focused, uninterrupted time an engineer might enjoy.
- 💼 The role of a manager involves mentoring, developing team culture, and balancing technical roadmaps and priorities.
- 🚧 The speaker felt a loss of technical depth as a manager, which was a significant drawback for them due to their passion for technology.
- 🤝 A key part of management is achieving through others, which requires building a strong team and fostering collaboration.
- 🔑 The speaker realized their passion for technical work after an intense hour of problem-solving, which was more satisfying than their managerial duties.
- 🔄 The transition back to an engineer was a gradual process to ensure minimal disruption to the team.
- 🛑 The experience as a manager provided the speaker with valuable skills and clarity on their career preferences, despite the challenges.
Q & A
What was the individual's initial career transition from software development engineer to what role?
-The individual transitioned from a software development engineer to a software development manager.
Why did the person decide to switch back to their previous role as a software development engineer?
-The person switched back because they missed the technical aspects of software development and felt more passionate about it compared to the managerial responsibilities.
What are the two general ways to become a software manager according to the script?
-The two general ways are either directly requesting the role from your manager or by taking the lead in a team without a manager and doing the tasks that a manager would typically do.
What was the individual's approach to stabilizing the team they joined as a manager?
-The individual focused on setting up processes, such as regular sprint planning and being accountable for time spent on tasks, to build a culture and community within the team.
What challenges did the person face when transitioning to a managerial role, especially during COVID?
-The person faced challenges like building team camaraderie without in-person interaction, maintaining team culture, and dealing with the absence of large blocks of uninterrupted time for deep technical work.
What type of training did the individual undergo to prepare for the managerial role?
-The individual underwent extensive training provided by their company, which included many hours of resources to understand what it means to be a manager at Amazon.
How did the person describe their day-to-day experience as a manager?
-The day-to-day experience as a manager was filled with meetings, stakeholder management, and less time for deep technical work, which was a significant change from their previous role.
What was the individual's realization about the importance of team culture in their role as a manager?
-The individual realized that building a healthy team culture was crucial for success, as the manager's effectiveness is directly tied to the team's performance and ability to work collaboratively.
What was the 'inflection point' that led the person to reconsider their career path as a manager?
-The 'inflection point' was a moment of intense frustration during a series of unproductive meetings about a technical solution, which led to the realization that they missed the technical depth and problem-solving aspects of software development.
How did the individual's experience as a manager impact their current role as a software development engineer?
-The experience as a manager provided valuable insights into people management, communication, and empathy, which have been beneficial in their current role as a software development engineer.
What advice does the individual offer to others who are considering a transition from an individual contributor to a management role?
-The individual advises others to try the management role to gain clarity on their preferences, as they believe the experience can provide valuable skills and insights, even if they ultimately decide that management is not the right path for them.
Outlines
🔄 Transition from Software Developer to Manager
The speaker reflects on their transition from a software development engineer to a software development manager, a role they eventually left to return to software development. They share their motivation for trying management, the process of becoming a manager at Amazon, and the initial steps of setting up processes and building team culture. The speaker also discusses the two common paths to becoming a manager: directly requesting the role or leading a team in the absence of a formal manager.
📚 Resources for Becoming a Manager
The speaker discusses the resources available at their company for training new managers, including extensive hours of instruction on managerial roles specific to Amazon. They also recommend the book 'Managing the Unmanageable' as an invaluable guide for transitioning from a software engineer to a manager, highlighting its relevance to their own Amazon-centric experiences.
👥 Managerial Duties and Team Dynamics
The speaker outlines the day-to-day responsibilities of a manager, emphasizing the shift from focused development work to a schedule filled with meetings and stakeholder management. They discuss the importance of building a collaborative team culture and the challenges of information silos, sharing strategies to encourage open communication and knowledge sharing within the team.
🚀 The Pros of Being a Manager
The speaker enumerates the advantages of being a manager, such as the opportunity to mentor and develop the careers of software development engineers, controlling the technical roadmap, shaping team culture, and witnessing the team's achievements. They highlight the sense of accomplishment that comes from guiding a team to success and the personal growth that results from these experiences.
🔍 Cons of Managerial Role and Personal Realizations
The speaker delves into the downsides of being a manager, including the prevalence of meetings, the loss of hands-on technical work leading to a feeling of becoming outdated, the sense of responsibility without direct control, and a shift in the type of accomplishments experienced. They share their personal realization that the manager role did not align with their passion for technical work and the direct satisfaction it brings.
🔙 Decision to Return to Software Development
The speaker recounts a pivotal moment that led to the decision to revert from a managerial role back to software development. They describe a frustrating situation involving repeated meetings to explain a technical solution, which culminated in a personal realization of their deep-seated passion for technical problem-solving. This realization prompted a smooth transition back to their previous role as a software development engineer.
🤔 Reflections on Managerial Experience
In conclusion, the speaker reflects on the valuable skills and insights gained from their managerial experience, such as enhanced communication, organization, and empathy. They express gratitude for the opportunity to have tried management, as it provided clarity on their career preferences and enabled them to better understand and support their current manager's role.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Software Development Engineer
💡Software Development Manager
💡Transition Process
💡Individual Contributor
💡Managerial Role
💡Career Path
💡Team Culture
💡Mentorship
💡Technical Expertise
💡Accomplishment
💡Meetings
Highlights
Transition from software development engineer to manager and back, reflecting on the experience.
Exploring the decision between individual contributor and management roles in software development.
Personal backstory and interest in management, leading to a transition attempt.
Two approaches to becoming a software manager: direct request or taking the lead in a team without a manager.
The importance of building processes and culture in a team, especially in challenging situations.
The realization of wanting to become a manager and the decision-making process.
Training and resources available for new managers to understand their role.
The shift in daily activities from focused development work to constant interruptions and meetings.
The challenge of achieving through others and the impact on team success.
The benefits of mentorship and developing other software developers' careers.
Control over the tech roadmap and the responsibility of balancing various team needs.
Developing team culture and the importance of collaboration and communication.
The downside of numerous meetings and the exhaustion that comes with constant interaction.
The loss of technical depth and the struggle of staying current with technology as a manager.
The feeling of powerlessness despite responsibility, and the need to course correct team actions.
The change in the type of accomplishments and the longing for the satisfaction of direct technical problem-solving.
The moment of realization about the true passion for technical work, leading to the decision to step back from management.
The transition back to a software development engineer role and the process of readjustment.
Reflection on the benefits of the management experience, including improved communication and organizational skills.
The conclusive learning from the experience, knowing that a management role is not the desired path.
Transcripts
about a year ago i transitioned from a
software development engineer to a
software development manager and it was
a really interesting experience but i
ended up switching back to my software
development engineer role i want to kind
of talk to you about what that
transition process looked like because i
realized that there's so many people
that are in a very similar boat that are
trying to decide if they want to pursue
the individual contributor or the
software development engineer role all
the way to you know principal engineer
distinguished engineer whatever that is
and they're trying to decide between
that or changing their career path
entirely to be a software manager
so i wanted to kind of tell you about
what my experience was like
give you a little bit of a back story
about like kind of my interest in
management
how i transitioned into a manager what
the role looks like in terms of the
day-to-day uh some of the pros and cons
as i perceive them and then just some
closing thoughts on the transition
process and back to being an ste so
that's what this video is about um let's
start a little bit i guess with my
backstory
so many of you know i'm a software
development engineer senior software
development engineer at amazon been here
for around seven years or so um and
shortly after my promotion about a year
ago i decided to try out that software
development manager role so like what
did that process look like how did i
decide uh and how did i approach things
so the first thing that you have to know
is that if you want to become a software
manager um there's generally two ways
that you can do it you either directly
request that from your manager be like
hey manager i want i'm interested in a
software manager role i want to do this
and kind of you have a conversation
there so that's one approach is very
direct and to the point the other way is
to kind of put yourself in an
environment in an environment where
there's no structure in a team
necessarily and you kind of build the
processes so you take the lead of that
team and do a lot of the things that the
manager would typically do that being
said like if there's already a manager
on the team you may struggle with that
if there's no manager on the team then
obviously it's easy to do so the latter
was my situation i had joined a team
that was kind of underwater they only
had a couple sds on the team they
managed some really really important
services so myself and another engineer
kind of went into this team to try and
help out and stabilize things
so even before this i already kind of
knew that at some point in my career i
wanted to try to become a manager just
to see what that role is like and i'd
always respected a lot of like vps and
directors those were kind of the later
levels of the manager role and so i
thought you know maybe i want to do this
and like how do you know unless you try
it right so that was kind of my my
starting state so i was on this new team
and you know things were kind of up in
the air the processes were all kind of
broken you only had a couple more junior
sds on the team so there wasn't much
going on they didn't really have a
direct manager at the time
that was involved in the day-to-day
so immediately kind of when i entered
the team like my first instinct was to
try and stabilize things by setting up
processes so things like you know having
your regular sprint planning being
accountable with the amount of time that
you're spending on tasks
kind of building that kind of culture
and community in your team so
it's very difficult i guess during covid
when you're not in person all the time
but you know things as simple as during
stand-ups turning on your camera so you
actually can make a connection with
people like all this stuff like started
to put in place and i found that it
started to build that culture and build
that kind of camaraderie between myself
and my peers and i always say like
you're only as good as your team as an
as an ic or even as a manager so it's
not just all about the individual it's
about building a culture and building a
team that can kind of contribute as a
group and think about these complex
problems and solve them as a unit as
opposed to you know siloing everything
soloing all your knowledge or just
assigning people to different parts of
different projects so as i was doing
this and kind of setting up these
processes like part of this was i was
reporting back to my manager at the time
like what was going on what was good
about the team like what needed some
work that kind of stuff um so like she
had a good idea of what i was already
doing and so
naturally the question came like do you
want to try to be a manager for this
team and at that point like i didn't
really know how to react to be perfectly
honest with you but at the time i was
like kind of excited kind of nervous
kind of um interested in learning more
basically because it was something that
i had thought about previously it was
something that um you know come to my
mind multiple times
so she had kind of approached me with
that i thought about it i decided that
you know what like if i fail who cares i
can always go back to my other role and
if things work out and i love the role
then great like i get a fast track to
becoming a manager and now i know what i
want to do
so it was a pretty easy process to
decide like what i wanted to to do in
that position and i ended up accepting
the role
and so like what did the transition
process look like at that point well for
me in my circumstance like not really a
lot changed um because i was already
kind of building these processes and
kind of acting as a manager from the
start so not a lot in my day-to-day
change early on um in terms of like the
training and like let's talk about that
first actually like how do i learn how
to be a manager because i think that's
probably an important thing that people
struggle with because they're nervous
like i don't know anything about being a
manager how do i do this
um
so at my company there's like some
really really great resources so there's
like 40 hours or 80 hours some massive
number of hours of training that you can
do to talk about what it means to be a
manager at this particular company at
amazon and that was excellent that
training i personally thought so
it kind of shed a lot of light on what
the manager role looks like what you do
how to evaluate you know performance and
and types of things like that
and kind of what it means to be a
manager at amazon because i think this
is another key part uh that i realized
later like what a manager looks like at
one company can be a totally different
thing than what it looks like at a
different company it's kind of like you
know subject to interpretation you have
this set of roles at a particular
company as a manager that could look
very different somewhere else
so learning about what it means to be a
manager at amazon was something that
kind of took me a little bit of time to
get through all these different
resources another really really valuable
piece of material for me was a book
called managing the unmanageable and
it's by
two guys named mickey mantle and i think
it's ron lichty i'll put a link in the
comments and description section so you
can check it out but this book is
basically um a software development
engineer to software management like
kind of trans transition guide or
transition book uh and i swear the guy
that wrote this book or the two guys
that wrote this book must have worked at
either amazon or some fang company in
the past because a lot of what they talk
about is very similar to the processes
that we have internally so it was a very
very um good read for me because i was i
already knew the processes but now i'm
kind of learning more about what it
means to to be the manager and what you
actually have to do
on the day-to-day
um so now that naturally transitions
into like what do you actually do like
how do you spend your time
um i guess the first thing to say is
that if you if you as an sd enjoy having
large blocks of time of uninterrupted
time where you can focus on things then
you're probably not gonna like being a
manager because your day like very
quickly fills up with meetings and like
talking to people in stakeholder
management organization all that kind of
stuff
so you don't have the time anymore to
really um dive into the code and like
pour over the technical side of services
that you manage that was one thing that
kind of was difficult for me like i used
to have periods of you know four or five
hours sometimes of an uninterrupted time
and that was valuable for me to like
learn how services work to design things
to implement code all that kind of stuff
but as a manager you need to embrace
interruptions you're constantly going to
be getting interrupted either by people
on your team or stakeholders or your
boss or you know other people that need
help with something
and i wasn't really used to that and so
it took a little bit of time for me to
adjust but once i got into the groove it
was pretty easy
there's a lot of like other types of
meetings and things that you're involved
in so personal mentorship priority
planning
organization and future roadmap planning
that kind of stuff capacity planning is
big too like how many people do you have
how many people are you gonna have in
six months from now how many people do
you need for the projects that you
committed to what are the dates you
committed to do you need to push them
back these are the kinds of um questions
that you need to be thinking about and
you know your managers are going to be
expecting the answer because ultimately
you are the responsible one for the team
in terms of deliverables and this kind
of leads naturally into the other part
of it which is
you're kind of responsible but you're a
little bit powerless to do things
yourself like sure you can set up a team
how you want but ultimately at the end
of the day you are not the person
implementing the code anymore you are
not the one designing things anymore you
are not the one that is in the weeds
doing all the low-level work the people
under you are and that means that you're
only as good as your team and the people
that are on your team so this is like a
very fundamental fact if you don't have
a good team in a good team culture and a
good team environment it doesn't need to
start that way but you can build it if
you don't like put in that effort to
build it and build a healthy team like
you're going to get screwed because
your team's not going to be able to
deliver they may be kind of not
cooperating the way that you want them
to cooperate maybe not collaborating in
an efficient way
and i'm of the opinion that you know
it's great to have a lot of people in a
room to make a better decision like if
you're just one person trying to make a
decision if you have five people it's
going to be a lot better quality
decision because there's going to be
criticism from other people's experience
from past failures from past successes
so building that culture of being
collaborative
and kind of working with each other was
extremely important in my success and
one easy way that i did to do this maybe
i can just give you an example really
quick is you know when we had feature
requests or like a new project typically
when you have larger projects it's kind
of assumed you assumed that you do
design documents and have design reviews
but for smaller things like a minor
feature like a minor new api like you
don't necessarily have these large
design documents but i kind of made the
the habit of asking whoever was working
on it like can you do a mini design
document and then share it with the team
so we can collect feedback and so this
had like multiple benefits it gave your
sdes the opportunity to practice leading
a meeting to practice writing a document
to practice their communication
both verbal and written skills and
facilitating the meeting so that's great
for career development and it was also
great from a perspective of keeping the
team kind of informed of what key
decisions were being made and having the
opportunity to put some some um kind of
thought into are we making the right
approach maybe we are maybe we're not
but if you don't have the conversations
about it you'll never know
um so that was a kind of a quick and
easy way that i i think helped build the
team's culture and de-silo information
that's another big problem that you need
to deal with as a manager is if you have
certain people that are kind of like the
experts in a very specific area so kind
of not a all jack-of-all-trade the
opposite so you know they know something
really really well and not ever not
anyone else or no one else knows about
it that well uh or no one else knows
about it at all that's a big problem
because if that person leaves um or
something happens and they're out of the
office then you're kind of out of luck
and you know you need to figure out what
to do with these services and how to
manage them you've got to keep on moving
forward with the business
so that was kind of something that you
need to be careful of and try to prevent
of the siloing of information
so like i kind of said i'm just taking a
look at some notes here um you got to
learn to achieve through others and
build this community and build this uh
team because ultimately you achieve
through others at this point and uh
that's kind of your function as a
manager achieve through others tear down
roadblocks make your ste's lives easier
and
yeah try to keep your your sanity
because you'll be in a lot of meetings
um so to jump in so that's a little bit
of a background actually of just like
what i thought about being a manager was
like and like what the role looks like
in terms of like more direct and to the
point um pros and cons so let's start
with some pros um so the first pro is
that you get to mentor and develop the
career of many stds that are under you
and personally for me like i thought
this was great like i love talking to
people about technical things and giving
people career guidance and giving people
actionable feedback that they can do to
improve themselves uh sometimes it's
hard when you're on the other end like
the receiving end to understand like
where you went wrong or what you should
do in certain circumstances so you get
to give people like good feedback well
all feedback is good feedback but you
know positive sounding feedback so you
did great here
good job on this task blah blah blah but
you also get to give people ways to
improve themselves so if you notice
something that like maybe someone
approached a situation in a way that was
a little bit rough around the edges you
can give them feedback and say like i
noticed you did this
you know good job on the follow through
but you know this this approach caused x
y and z problems have you thought about
next time doing it this way um so
there's a nice way to say it you don't
need to attack the person but um you
know it's all about growing your peers
and watching them grow over time and
just seeing some of my previous peers um
you know six months ago and and where
they are now there's like massive growth
so it's very rewarding as an individual
to know you kind of played a critical
role in that
so that's pro number one the other one
is the fact that you have uh control
over the tech roadmap um so you get to
decide like what the team is going to be
working on uh who's going to be working
on what um how much you want to balance
new features new news projects with
operational excellence and also keeping
in mind that people need projects in
order to work on for promotion data
points um so balancing all of this stuff
together is kind of an interesting um
balancing act i guess you can say to
make sure that you're you're hitting all
the bases here and not leaving any area
really
or not neglecting any one area i guess
is the right way to say it
uh the other one which i the other pro i
think i've mentioned this multiple times
but you get to develop that team culture
and mold it in any way that you want
sometimes if you have particularly
strong sdes under you that are very
opinionated the culture can kind of just
build itself
but sometimes that's not always the case
you have people that may be a little bit
more quieter and require a little bit
more guidance and so in that case you
get to define the culture very clearly
of like what the expectations are is
this going to be like a strictly working
you know a professional environment
where everyone is always serious all the
time don't do that that sucks no one
wants to be on a team like that
or is it going to be kind of a
open-minded friendly conversational uh
experience where you trust your
teammates and you know you're willing to
share and they're willing to share with
you like you want that right that sounds
good that's a good trusting environment
where you act as a unit not as an
individual that's what you want to build
and then the final pro that i would say
is you get to watch your team deliver
and you know you're not the one putting
in the low-level work you're not the one
designing the solutions but the through
your actions your teammates are you know
able to work on certain projects you
give them feedback during design
you coach them and guide them you are
accomplishing goals through your
teammates they are your kind of vectors
for
achievements so watching your team
deliver is really a positive thing and
you know it's a feel-good moment that's
for sure
now in terms of
cons of being a manager
you probably have a guess of some of
them but let me let me state them
very clearly so the first one was that
there's meetings many many meetings um
you're constantly in meetings at
particular times of the year it's worse
but other times of the year um it's not
so bad but especially during like
planning phases and busy busy times of
the business it depends on like what
industry you're in of course um but
expect to have like a one-on-one with
every one of the sds under you at least
like once a week once every two weeks
maybe for some of you
yeah once every two weeks it's probably
more reasonable actually but
there's that there's
some sprint planning if you're using
sprints there's stakeholder management
there's new feature requests there's
meetings with your boss there's mediums
with other um kind of parallel managers
that are in your that report to your
same line manager uh so there's a lot of
busyness
and um this is part of the problem like
you have all these meetings and you're
exhausted by the end of the day honestly
like i was exhausted and not because i
was doing something particularly hard
but because you're in meetings all day
long a lot of the time you have to be
actively listening and you know actively
give good feedback and that kind of zaps
your brain at least for me personally
that zaps my brain after like eight nine
hours of that and um it wasn't something
i was used to so i learned to kind of
protect my time i would block off um
periods in my calendar my outlook
calendar for like two hours if i needed
a break to like
for personal time for for getting things
done during the work day or else your
calendar like any open time you have in
your calendar that's like a free free
game like anyone could could sign up for
that so you got to protect your time and
protect the time of your sds
so that's something i didn't really like
now the other thing is that this this
one hit home this is probably the most
important one
and that's that you lose touch of the
tech
because you got to remember like being a
manager is a completely different career
path
sure you are a software development
manager but again you're not in the
weeds you're not learning about new tech
you can't you don't have enough time to
do that anymore and so for me that was
kind of a dagger through my heart
because like as you know i have this
channel i have like a website i have all
these different things all about
learning tech and i thought originally
that okay i have this youtube channel
maybe that'll give me enough
satisfaction um of learning tech or
exposure to tech and so this wouldn't be
a big problem as a manager but it ended
up being like a really big problem and i
quickly found myself becoming like out
of date with what was going on in aws
and like cloud computing and all that
and that sucked for me so um that's
something that you know think about that
if you're considering going down this
path because
um
it's something that'll that'll creep up
on you and you don't realize you love
something until it's gone um i guess
that's the lesson
uh the other con is that you are
responsible for everything but in some
cases kind of powerless or you get the
feeling of powerlessness
and that's kind of takes some getting
used to so like i said before you're
achieving through others when they fail
you fail and so you need to kind of keep
an eye on that and course correct and
make sure that your team is staying in
um staying on track and able to deliver
ultimately
and the last one was that
um i guess you can say like i had a lack
of feelings of accomplishment or maybe
the right way to say it is that i had
accomplishments but they weren't the
same types of accomplishments i had as
an sde so it felt like very very
different to me so the types of
accomplishments you'll have as a manager
like getting someone's promotion
document through or giving someone's
someone feedback and watching them
action on it or watching your peers grow
from you know a junior confused ste to a
very independent and kind of um
excellent sd that can carry their own
weight so like those are the types of
accomplishment you would get or like a
doc review you'd have a good doc review
meeting great woohoo awesome
but as an sd there's like a very
different set of accomplishments that
you get um
at least for me
the most
kind of satisfying feeling that i have
as a software developer is a designing
things i love designing things and b
when you know when like you're working
on some kind every st is going to know
this every programmer you're trying to
solve something like you're trying to
debug a problem that you've been like
just grinding out for hours and hours
and hours you've tried everything you're
like so confused like why isn't this
working it should be working does it
work on your machine yeah it works on
mine does it work on this machine no
what's going on you know those moments
where like you just you're grinding it
you need to figure it out and then
finally after like 10 hours whatever it
is you figure it out and it's like
ah
i am like the king of the world like
that feeling i love that feeling and you
don't get that feeling anymore as a
manager you don't have that that time to
do these types of tasks anymore
and i realized when i wasn't in the role
anymore how much i missed that and how
much i wanted that to be part of my
day-to-day life
so those were kind of the the major
cons in my opinion
of being a manager
and so now i kind of want to bring it
back to
like how i got out of the manager role
and like what made me decide like how
did i know it wasn't for me
and i was having some like thoughts uh i
guess after so i was a manager for about
a year so i want to say between like six
to eight months i started having some
thoughts of like i don't know if this is
for me just based on like what i was
working on and how i was kind of feeling
about the role
so there was a very particular moment
where i had this i want to call it
inflection point of um you know deciding
my my future career path
and um so we were we were part of a team
that um operated a kind of an
infrastructure service and we were
onboarding a brand new client for the
first time we were doing this
re-architecture where we were offering
this new solution that was more generic
just easier to use
and so one of my like lead us to ease
was meeting with their us sds and like i
was in these meetings we were explaining
to them our approach seemed like they
got it and everything was good
and
it turned out very quickly a couple days
later they didn't get it and we kept on
having these kind of meetings for an
hour at a time talking about these
things me talking about it my sd talking
about their sd talking their manager
going at it and we just weren't making
any progress and like it felt like we
were making progress in the moment but
afterwards like we'd have further
follow-up questions and then another
meeting and then like we went through
like a ton of these meetings and it was
just so frustrating and i remember
asking myself like why is this happening
why like this shouldn't be that hard to
figure out and i was like is it me like
am i doing something wrong am i not
explaining it am i not talking about it
do i not understand it 100 in a way that
i can explain it and be confident about
it like what's going on here and the
truth was like i wasn't 100 confident in
exactly how the solution worked because
like i knew generally how it worked
obviously but um you're not implementing
it anymore right you're not in the weeds
you don't know the nuances you don't
know the edge cases you're not
necessarily engaged directly in the
solution like as a low-level example but
you know broadly how it works and so i
was asking myself this i'm like what is
going on so i finally got fed up with
this and i'm like you know what i'm
gonna just spend an hour and i'm gonna
you know pull out a piece of paper i'm
gonna draw like a flow diagram of how
this system works an example to run
through and like what this person's
situation is and how this solution
should work for them
and so i did that and i was having like
the time of my life honestly like i had
so much fun doing that um i was honestly
shocked but a ton of fun doing that and
i had more fun in that one hour working
through the technical complexity and
figuring out what the problem and where
we were going wrong and more fun doing
that in one hour than i've had probably
in like the past two weeks of being a
manager
and for me like that was it i i knew at
that point that um this wasn't something
that i can sustain for a long period of
time and that i knew where my passion
was like my passions were very very
clear to me in that instant and they
continue to be clear to me even now as
i'm talking to you like i know for a
fact that like i'm a tech person i'm
probably always going to be a tech
person unless something catastrophic
happens and i lose my fingers and i
can't type anymore maybe that won't stop
me
but um that was that was it that's when
i knew and so um i told my manager the
same story and she kind of agreed it's
like you know what like that's how you
feel then you know the writing is on the
wall um i think you should transfer or
she didn't say that but like i made the
decision and she was in agreement
um so a couple months after that it was
like a slow transition back to
sde um and it was over the course of a
couple months just because i wanted to
have a smooth process and not interrupt
like the day to day and affect the team
in any meaningful way um so it was over
like three months or so uh ended up
staying on the original team that i was
managing which i thought may have been
awkward because now you're going from a
a relationship where you know you're
managing someone and now you're their
peer and you don't want them to just say
yes to you just because you were their
old manager you want your the merit of
the ideas to decide and so that was a
little bit kind of tough to work through
but i got over it they got over it ended
up being fine
um but yeah that's kind of the the
journey of how i got there and decided i
wanted to share some retrospective and
just some closing thoughts and like this
is important um about my experience
being a manager
and honestly i don't regret it for a
minute
i learned so much about well first of
all i developed a ton of skills like
communication organization people
management skills uh not people
management just people skills in general
i guess you can say like those went
through the roof in terms of my
development so i grew a ton as an
individual a lot of the organizational
techniques that i learned at the time um
i still use to this day as an sde and
it's just so much more manageable now to
kind of manage my day and my priorities
so i don't lose sight of things um
communication through you know my
youtube channel and um through the role
because you're talking to people so much
that obviously increased and just how to
have empathy for people for your peers
and put yourself in another person's
situation i also learned how to do that
so learned a lot of soft skills there
also invaluable because now i know kind
of what my manager why they are asking
certain questions like i know what they
are looking for when they are asking
certain questions when they ask me like
oh how long is this going to take and
how that feeds into the planning process
and resourcing and how many people we
can hire all that kind of stuff so it i
have a lot of perspective now on what
that role looks like what the manager
role looks like and i can use that to my
advantage because i know the situation
that my manager is in and i can help
them in a way that i know will be
impactful so that's a very very powerful
benefit of this whole experience and
finally
the the final benefit or the best part
is that i learned that i didn't like it
and honestly i i'm glad that i tried it
because now i know that it's not for me
and i don't have to sit on the fence
anymore deciding like do i want to
teeter this way into a management role
for my career do i want to stick as se
now i know the answer conclusively and
i'm glad that i took the opportunity to
try this out and if i didn't i probably
would have regretted it
so that's my experience on being a
manager hopefully you got some insight
if you were kind of trying to decide to
be a manager or an individual
contributor or sd this gave you some
some light into what the role looks like
um if you have any comments or you want
to know more about the experience feel
free to leave a comment in the section
below i'll try to get back to your
answers and thanks so much for watching
and i'll see you next time see ya
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