I applied as a full-stack dev at a private company, they offered me the Project Manager role instead, I took the offer and after 1yr they gave me a choice to choose between staying as a Project Manager or switching to being a Software Engineer/System Analyst. I took the SoftEng position because project management isn’t my career choice for now.

Now people saying I not knowingly chose to be demoted. Is it a bad choice?

If you're not ready for project management, then you're not ready for it.

It's not for everyone, and some people just prefer to punch out projects then run them.

Good point. I am fair/average when it did project management over the course of a year. The only thing I couldn’t handle is managing people. I would rather just take orders than giving them, unless I am told to give orders, if you know what I mean

@torilicious by that description it seems you would have a better time?being sw eng instead, sad that people say stuff like "demotion" though. Not everyone is suitable for management roles hence why so many managers are terrible. You could look at your companies tech ladder if they have one, which is a good way to advance but from an engineering position

@matt-jd I wouldn’t see it as a demotion myself. Just that others see it as a demotion. Plus I understand very few can carry project management, but that is not my career path for now. Plus, company ladder is shit since everything is based on favor points and loyalty

Taking the job highest paid or mostly respected by society thats available is called "career". but going for the job you want to do is a real "career choice"!

People are judging your decision by their career path instead of yours. If you don’t want to be a project manager then don’t be.
I’ve been told loads of times I should be a manager, what they can’t get their heads around is that I don’t want to be a manager, I want to follow a technical path.

If right now you feel like you will enjoy being a dev more than a pm then I reckon that will make yo a great dev because you are enjoying it vs being a second rate pm because you aren’t enjoying it.

Thanks @cuidas and @TrevorTheRat. The story is going around the office and its kinda hard to focus on my work, but yeah, being a dev is all I want to focus for now

@InnocenceWine what I’ve struggled with is finding a place where you can progress any further than senior dev without leaving the tech track. You might be a while away from that but keep a look out for those places.

There’s no end of opportunities to become people/project/product managers. But it seems the value of creating good technical leadership roles isn’t as common as one would hope.

Maybe it’s because this is a technical industry lead by non-technical people. Who knows.

@TrevorTheRat probably in the future I might be a manager, who knows. My main focus is gaining enough experience in my current field and probably find a job at the government or similar to that

I would tell them that is like saying you got a bad deal on a motorcycle because it has fewer options than a car.

Yes both options lead to different careers but being in charge is not necessarily important to a successful Career, like power windows in a motorcycle is not relevant.