Ask HN: Lead developer but I just don't enjoy management

I have hired many developers who have progressed all the way from Jr and Sr through to management and CTO.

When someone is enjoying their career path and responsibility growth, it is an amazing experience for everyone.

When someone isn't enjoying it, it is MISERABLE for everyone. The problem is that in most cases the person in question asked for this career path. It's not their fault, they didn't know they wouldn't enjoy it. A combination of humility, denial and desire (for compensation growth) propels them to keep trying though. Because they are good developers and usually good people, it's hard to tell them they are performing poorly.

The best thing you can do for you, your manager and the company is to have a clear and concise conversation about it: I WAS excited about this path, but it's not working as well as I hoped. I still love being here, is there another path I can take?

A nice way to continue to contribute at a leadership level would be to mentor newer developers, work on some cross functional teams as an advisor, create programs that help others in the company develop skills (run the weekly demo event, create a lunch and learn for developers, etc). There are a lot of things you can do to support the growth of the company overall while keeping the scope of your actual responsibilities more well defined and focused on what you enjoy the most.

There's nothing better than learning what you love to do and then focusing on it. The absence of doing work you love gave you the experience you needed to know what you don't want to do. Management isn't right for everyone and isn't a logical step for many. With that given, you also don't need to rely entirely on your full time job to do work you enjoy. Hobby coding is a favorite pass-time for thousands of people. You get to build what interests of you.

After watching several of my friends become managers, directors, and VPs, I got FOMO and finally said yes to the management track about 25 years of software development. After about 3 years of engineering management, I was absolutely miserable, almost not programming at all, and spending 6 or more hours per day making sure I was camera-ready for the next Zoom meeting. Fortunately I had an S-Corporation that lived in a binder on a shelf (and so can you for about $125 and a few mouse clicks), and it came to the rescue. I branded myself as an independent consultant, got super lucky and landed a few retainers, and here I am, making more money and largely sticking to programming at the Tech Lead level. Yeah there's a bit of extra effort that goes into invoicing, running payroll, and paying taxes, but it's nowhere near as bad as management.

I've been in a similar position, a couple times in my career. I think its a natural trap to fall into when you are the kind of person that is good at bootstrapping projects to the point where they need a team to grow further, but not interested in management.

A newsletter article (not mine) that helped crystallize my thinking around this, and helped me to explain it to non-technical folks in my current organization is this one: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-leade.... Unfortunately its pay-walled, but Gergely (author) put some of the content in a tweet thread that is worth reading (https://twitter.com/gergelyorosz/status/1473353064358756352). If you look at the venn diagram posted in that thread, it sounds like you fall squarely in the "beware!!" zone.

If you are like me, you fall into that zone, at least in part, because you are clinging to the some technical duties that you could give up, but since they are the foundation of why you enjoy your job, refuse to do so. Understanding this and your own strengths and weaknesses clearly, can really help frame possible solutions for you. I would spend some time reflecting (and it sounds like you already have) about what you want out of this job and your career in general.

Perhaps you can propose to your management that you want to move into more of a "staff engineer" role. This may or may not work, and in the end, depending on the management at your company, you may have to move on to find what you want, but being clear about what that you want, is the first step in that direction.

Been there, got out.

I recommend to listen to some of Cal Newport's "lifestyle centric career planning" podcast episodes on this. I basically followed similar ideas a decade ago and have been very happy with the decision.

Your thinking is not at all childish or idealistic. It's important to straighten these sort of questions out.