Years ago I was leading a large team (~40) and I was killing myself with stress. I left and did a startup, fell in love with coding and shipping again, joined Meta as an E6 IC, led a major initiative, got pushed back into management, built a team, and have a looming M2 promo according to my manager. Problem is that I hate management. Making sure people are growing stresses me out. When I screw up it affects a lot more people. Representing people properly during reviews takes so much effort. Why not just do code? I’m afraid it is a career limiting move. As a coder I think I’m solid, but as leader I can see that my ability to synthesize top problems into high leverage goals, plan, communicate, ship, and overall leadership skills are (not so humbly) much rarer. What’s the right move here? I can just stick with coding and see where it takes me, and if that’s no higher, fine. I’m also wondering if there isn’t some other area I should consider. I love solving product problems and I sometimes wonder if there are roles that value product leadership more and are less tech heavy but have a lot of growth potential. Has anyone here done developer relations engineering? Helping teams ship sounds really rewarding right now. What areas am I not aware of that really fit my skills?
If you are good at synthesizing problems and helping people execute you can be very successful as a IC7. If you don't like management, don't do it. I can imagine opportunities to leverage your strengths to solve big product problems. If you're interested in talking, feel free to message.
What does this path look like? Do you lead projects well at 6 and that gets you promo? (Thanks for the offer to chat privately!)
Executing projects well at 6 won't get you to 7. For 7 usually you'll be responsible for a step function impact on a problem space. Understand the problem, figure out how to scale through a combination of projects your team takes on, partnerships and so on. It will have impact on several teams. Usually 7s have impact at a org level and starts to impact across orgs. Hope that's helpful
Because that’s how you provide most value to company. That’s why company is pushing you into management, to multiply others efforts. Why would they not try to get some extra $$$?
Ironically, it seems that you have the best mentality for being a manager. Usually, the power hungry jackasses that want to become managers for the prestige and the money alone, end up being the worst ones
OP said he hates worrying about other peoples growth. That is not the best mentality.
I was going to disagree with you but then I realized that this is a really insightful comment: I do love helping people grow but I find being responsible for it stressful. Thanks
What was your role at meta before quitting for your startup? Why you quite your startup and rejoined meta? I
The startup was a failure.
Yes being a manger is more productive and more money. Coding is less money and career limiting. Stress in either role can be dialed up and down depending on how much you care. Make your choice
Be a tech lead. Plenty of people stop there.
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Why not be a product manager
Good suggestion, I hadn’t considered that. Thanks!