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Every manager of programmers I've known who was not themselves a competent programmer caused more harm than good. Take that for what you will.
At the point I made this connection, I had lost several years of progress, skills had depleted, and technologies had moved on a lot. I'm still catching up! Consider that a cautionary tale. :-)
Just my 2¢.
Im doing a bit of management part time coz my team is small. I manage multiple products and i code on one product one week and the other product the next week.. sometimes it depends on the priority levels. We might have a release due in some product where extra hands are required. Then i go do that. So!
Will you love it? If you want to go work for apple or start your company or something, it always helps to have a bit of management in you. So instead of a full switch to management, ask your company if you can work on code 50% of the time.
http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/how-the-other...
also read the hackernews discussion:
If you're starting to do technical management after only 2 or 3 years working as a coder, I would say that's a bad move. Project management, people management - all fine, but it's extremely unlikely you have the depth of experience required to be providing technical direction for any kind of a large project
Every manager of programmers I've known who was not themselves a competent programmer caused more harm than good. Take that for what you will.
I was sitting nodding me head with that, but I did have a manager who was a trained engineer. He was good. Knew enough to know what to ask you, but didn't assume that he knew enough to implement something - so left the fine details to the developers. Now I have a team leader and group leader on top of that, who are in my opinion junior to intermediate level programmers who have gone for the management option early. T…
"I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief."