Ask HN: How to move from dev role to management/team lead role?

cauliflower99 shares similar ideas too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36029345

This. It’s likely not worth it for most folks considering management. There’s no pay incentive. Significantly more people politics (managing up, down, side-ways), you’re in meetings all day AND expected to do other administrative stuff which will naturally fall outside your 9-5.

The worst part: once you experience the power trip, it’s also hard to go back. Even after knowing fully well that you’re getting the wrong end of the bargain. Truth is, for better or for worse, a good manager can have significant influence over many things (from roadmap, to people’s future, to their own future career prospects).

I find that it’s a tad bit easier to write my own destiny as a manager, without having to resort to changing jobs/roles.

Another big negative often not talked about: unlike software development, where your skills are transferable when you change companies - management = people and relationships. You lose them every time you change ships and have to rebuild from scratch.

Some books that helped me: Peopleware and The Manager's Path

I went your road. Sort of, and came back to development at the end of it. What I did was take MBA courses at university level, this is sort of what happens when you either want to or move into management roles in Denmark. At least the part of Enterprise organisations that I’ve mainly worked in. You can certainly transition into becoming a good manager without taking courses, but they were immensely helpful for me.

I was, and am, a good leader in terms of decision making, being assertive and having a general focus on the well being of the people around me. A lot of the MBA and management literature is focused on this, as well as how you communicate. It was nice to pick up some extra tools in those areas, but I wouldn’t say that it would have been necessary for me to do throes courses. What I am not a natural at is planning. It was during my stint in management I was diagnosed with ADHD, so that sort of stood in the way (and still does), and I had to spend a lot of time on “resource management”. This is where you have delivery targets and employees (resources) that you need to juggle to meet your targets, and it’s going to be a constant chaos. I wasn’t apt at this, I likely never will be, and as a result I got an immense amount of value out of the MBA courses targeting this area. Then there was the part I hadn’t really known about before, the budgeting and value realisation. I mean, I obviously knew what budgeting is, and how it’s nice to deliver value, but I never knew just how much finance and “bookkeeping” you’re going to do as a manager. Again, the MBA courses dealing with learning how we are all cogs in the machine were irreplaceable for me in teaching me how much of a different mindset you’re going to need as a manager compared to being an employee.

What ultimately led me to abandon management was that I didn’t actually like to manage people. I like people, I like working with people, but I don’t like managing people. I think you need to ask yourself if you would want to become a manager at Walmart, or a nursery home or something completely not-related to SWE and if the answer is no, then I think you really need to consider what exactly you want. Because management is a discipline in its own right, and it’s almost nothing like mentoring or being a technical lead.

If it’s really what you want, then get into networks with other managers. Look up where you can find MBA courses, edx.org has some cool intro CS courses, maybe they have something similar for MBAs to help you sip your toes in it.