Ask HN: Getting back into an IC role as a manager
I've been in senior manager and director roles for the last 7 years. I miss coding at work and have enjoyed the coding I've been doing outside of work a lot more than anything substantial I've done as a manager. However, I also increasingly feel that my concrete tech chops are getting outdated or are just fading away. I used to be an excellent full-stack Rails engineer in full control of anything from AWS infrastructure to DB, Rails app server and front end. I am increasingly tempted to take a substantial, temporary pay cut moving back into an IC role. However, that would need to be at a different company, since I have zero interest working on anything my current employer has.
Has anyone made this jump back into an IC role? How did you find a role? What did you do to get the role?
Edit: Most importantly: Would you do it again?
26 comments
[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 59.5 ms ] threadI jumped from senior management track to architect track. Moreover, I consciously used the stint in management as a "trampoline" to a senior architect position, which helped both politically and in terms of the crucial soft /business skills I had acquired. This may or may not be a viable path, depending on a company.
It was fun! I was a “10x” contributor even though I was a bit rusty at the code part at first.
I knew how to interpret specs, read user and stakeholder minds, ask for help in the right way, and communicate up and down.
I got the role at a series B startup by having a senior dev there vouch for me. I didn’t do a technical interview. I told them they could just fire me after 90 days if they didn’t like the results.
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.
Parent is right. You don't need to lay people off. Getting stuff done in my new role is down to establishing credibility and knowing how teams and organisations work.
Upon reflection, if you really miss coding I'd recommend finding something part-time or a Solutions Engineer role.
The engineer-manager pendulum: https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum...
Questionable advice - is there a path back from CTO to engineer? https://charity.wtf/2022/07/29/questionable-advice-is-there-...
Would I do it again, no unless it was within my current company. Jumping to another company after not being hands on for a few years was very difficult. Especially when it came to the system design questions.
Edit: Now that I've made the transition, its great. It was a slow start with the coding aspects. The management background helps a lot for interactions with my peers and junior developers. My peers already think I should be at least the next level in the IC track, but that is probably because I take on responsibilities outside my immediate area.
The key here is finding a company which values IC as much as manager which unfortunately isn't true for every company.