Ask HN: How can I become a proper Project Manager from a Programmer?

1) Providing direct input, rather than summarized versions (even good project managers lose track of details and misstate things).

2) Learning what your project manager and others do. This can reveal corporate bullshit, but also enlighten you as to the amount of work that other middle-manager is actually involved with (and you may be surprised by their technical competence, or disappointed).

3) If you want to move out of a managed role in your company as a developer, and into a role that affords more authority and direction of projects (your own vision, if you will), this is a good opportunity to learn and to get face-time with people that you'll be interfacing with later, or that'll give you a promotion.

4) You don't find out secondhand what the corporate decisions are, you were there to witness them.

5) You learn what to say and what not to say to management. Never, ever, say that X is almost done when X is a prototype or subsystem. You speak about the completeness of the whole system, and then break down to the subcomponents. You learn the art of understating progress so that you don't seem to be behind (because you aren't, hopefully) but also to avoid the appearance of being further ahead (because it's just a prototype, or it's only one subsystem, or whatever).

I learned a lot at one of my jobs by being invited, as a lowly new-hire tester, to a few meetings with management. In particular, the smallness of scope of my portion of the project to the project as a whole, while still being on the critical path. Particularly, those meetings sat at the intersection of electrical, chemical, software, and mechanical engineering. That's where I learned what systems engineering was really about. A lot bad about that company, but outside their mismanagement of software, their understanding of systems management was actually pretty solid. That mismanagement was changing, but a lot of us software types didn't realize or understand our role in the whole process either (overvalued ourselves).

I became a Project Manager right out of college after completing my CS degree and did it for ~8 years. I believe I was pretty good at it, but I don't think I ever once really enjoyed it. I spent all my free time coding, and eventually realized I probably should have been doing it as a job all along. I then spent about a year self-teaching, moved half-way around the world to San Francisco, and found a job that, more often than not, I actually enjoy going to every day.

I'm sure some people really enjoy Project Management, but each of the three points in the parent comments ring extremely true for me, so for now at least I'd much rather be coding!

Cheers!