Devs who became managers,

How?

Don't unless you won't mind ever coding again.

Also, you got kids? You take care of children? Being a manager for devs is very much like raising the rudest most opinionated asshole children you can imagine.

Don't recommend unless you REALLY, and I mean REALLY REALLY, like to help people grow professionally.

You also need to be aware of the political landscape within the org you plan to be a part of. Without knowing the who's who you're never going to effectively protect your team.

@sariel damn that's rough I guess, sounds like you have your work cut out for you, good luck! Did you randomly just get a manager role in a new job after being a dev, or did they promote you to it?

@pandasama I got a rare taste of it when my director quit on the spot.

I held the position for about 8 months while they looked for someone else.

I could have stayed in the position but I enjoy coding too much and hated my team.

You always get those that envy your position if you move up and will try to make it difficult for you. I made it very clear to them they could step in any time and save me the trouble.

At this point, that team that I managed, all quit/were fired after the new director was brought in.

Seriously though, it was rewarding to see how that side of the business works though and made me appreciate good management vs terrible managers.

@sariel Damn that's really rough to be put into a position like that, pretty cool you got that experience though, thanks for sharing!

Better question:

Why?

What @atheist says

@atheist more money idk, do they make more money? I always assumed so

@pandasama it's a path to more money. Directors will typically make the same amount as Sr devs but with larger bonuses.

At least that's what I know from my experience/discussions.

@sariel Oh interesting, I always thought a teams manager would make the same as the teams tech lead (or is that the senior engineer), titles confuse me

The manager position at my institution works similarly to the senior software engineer. There is a team lead for the developers, which reports to me as I also take care of the logistics behind the program. I basically watch over our projects and mentor and contribute my employees in terms of how to work with our current tech stack, which was built by me and the team lead.

How does this happen? Ain't it burnout? Not really, the managerial side of things is handled without too much hassle, and still being able to develop with my guys is a constant opportunity, even then, the lads are good enough in which sometimes I do not do shit other than point them to documentation etc.

I was promoted to the manager position after the previous manager (which we all loved) had 0 development skills and the I.T director figured that dev skills were essential for the director since the manager NEEDED to lead by example with the dev staff.

@AleCx04 wait it sounds like you coded from time to time, is that right?

Important note to what I said: These guys were my close friends before they became my employees. They are not your typical opinionated asshole neckbeard devs without a life. We would get together over the weekend to watch sports, movies, play games etc. Shit, we still do. Having that relationship with me beforehand made it easy to transition into a manager position.

We do have harsh disagreements over times, as it happens, such as me telling the team lead that I did not mind episode 7 of star wars. Boy that was a battle royale. Worst mistake I had ever done. But as far as working with them as my staff, fucking breeze. They were also happy to hear that I was going to be the manager rather than some ivy league fucktard with no dev skills. I have yet to issue a command that they do not listen etc.

This is a highly scenario for a lot of other people/managers. because as Sariel said: in other places it is like dealing with kids

@pandasama yessir, I still actively partake in the development of programs. If the lads are working on something that proves too much for the level of staff I will actively jump in and work with them. This is not a rare occasion, it happens all the time :P

@AleCx04 woah sounds like a pretty demanding job there tbh! Good that your team is good (also episode 7 was actually devent, just ruined by what comes next), manager at my company doesn't do any code or any tech planning or anything, mostly just makes demands, even for the projects we have a seperate project manager (equivalent product owner I guess)

I was a manager when my colleague who took over gave his resignation who took over because of my boss who gave his resignation as well.

It was essentially AIDS as 70% of my time was meetings and pretty much 50% of them were useless. I just wanted to still design and code while having my team run well as it did before but I guess you can't have that lol.

A team can technically run well as a council but higher management always want a lead that can be blamed when problems arise.

I honestly feel teams with leads are overrated in general if everyone in a team knows what to do, but it's what people are used to.

Tech manager is even worse in my current job as you do NOTHING technical. You just manage people. I don't want to touch this with a 6ft pole.

TL;DR: it's just politics and BS and you will feel like you are doing nothing.

@PepeTheFrog lol why is everyone stories they became managers because some other one left, but yeah I understand meetings take up time and 1:1s weekly take up a lot of time but I feel managers time is better spent managing + tech scoping

@pandasama I guess it can be considered time well spent if you like doing it, but to be fair I don't lol.

@PepeTheFrog fair enough yeah, my only motivation was the idea that they probably earn more than engineers

@pandasama not really. It is pretty chill, all hands on deck means that we have a lot of down time to just focus on simple things or do just maintenance more than anything else. Honestly this is the chillest job I've ever had. I think that retail workers have a way worse experience in their day to day than I do. And meetings don't bother me for example since I just mute my ass while I keep doing other things unless I am called. Pretty simple

it happened for me because my organization is very very small ( i was the only paid tech person), and i convinced my boss that i couldnt do all the development work that needed to be done, so we hired more people, and i was the one who knew the most about the business logic and organizational stuff, so i had to manage the other devs. we're still quite small and so i still get to do a lot of coding myself, and i actually kinda enjoy looking at the big picture and directing others, delegating tasks, etc. Except when there's a bad or lazy dev, and then it's worse than just doing it all myself.

had people skills, and/or kissed ass very well.. sold their soul with various tender types and likely,

got sick of programming ?

@sariel do any of us like our teams ? I thought i did once but they ended up being needy assholes.

ugh.

i have to remember i'm surrounded by pychos lol

@AvatarOfKaine the importance of not being surrounded by weird neckbeards is pretty big man. Fr

Bruh, they swallow.

This is my first IC role out of management in about six years. I'd rather quit than go back.

That's just me though.

It takes different tolerances and different tactics to thrive in. I read once that when you get to management the most meaningful improvements you can make stop being skill improvements and start becoming behavioral improvements.

I learned that lesson too late, probably. I also just wanted to go back to being an engineer again, the atrophy in eng. skills was real, despite or probably in spite of that thing I said above about skill:behavior.

(though fwiw, my two most recent Manager titles saw me in charge of teams where there was at least one Principal making more than me. Do whatever you want with that anecdote, I'm not your supervisor.)

@AleCx04 lol nice I also mute myself in meetings mostly if it's just a standup or something and just focus when I'm called, but yeah retail is hell comparing anything to that is gonna make it better

@steev Yeah I can get directing others but if they struggle or do something the way you didn't discuss, your realize you could have done it quicker in your own time :p but hey, I guess that's all part of managing/mentoring

@AvatarOfKaine Kissing ass always gave me more responsibility with none of the benefits :p so I've given up on that

@AvatarOfKaine damn I guess from a managers perspective Devs become quite needy lol

@ComputerToucher Thanks for sharing, and I see so principals can make more (though principals are waaaay up the ladder lol) like a friend who's got like 3 year's experience is now starting as a manager while all staffs I've seen are 9+ years, then again managers vary in terms of experience they have etc

@pandasama never kiss ass. at most bite your tongue when there is a situation where you are not in the sphere of the highest social dominance, you'll be respected more.

noone really likes a kiss ass, except maybe narcissists who can be manipulated by constant praise.