Dev to Manager
I’ve been promoted to manager and initially I felt like I did a lot of groundwork initially and was always busy. Now my team is relatively autonomous and my job consists of saying yes or no to buisness people, and saying yes and no to design decision. It feels like I do a lot of nothing. Lots of people interrupt me and ask me things but I don’t actually produce anything meaningful. Is this a normal feeling?
Normal. As an individual contributer, you are used to producing a deliverable. Management is about producing an outcome. So all those decisions you are taking better lead to a predictable outcome or you aren’t doing your job right
Hang in there your yes/no decision will be tested... During testing time (hard times) your true character as a leader will come out
Enjoy! That means you did you job right!
good job, you can write some code in your free time.
Get a big bag of yes/no tokens and use 1 week as a "Control week"... just given them out randomly then compare the results. If they are the same: then give that bag to you boss and quit. Otherwise you are doing the right thing
Say yes/no to the wrong things or the wrong ppl, watch your ass get the boot.
say no to your boss
Sounds like you did your job well to get into this position. Next step is to be the driver for more business decisions instead of just being the yes/no go-between.
That’s what happens when you manage adults.