Ask HN: How did you decide between management and technical track?
(Source: I&#x27;m a Director-level with several managers reporting to me, and have been managing for 8 years now.)<p>What are your goals? is it just more money and responsibility? Is it helping other people? Do you get a thrill out of teaching and mentoring? Are you the kind of person who just has to be one of the decision makers? Is control and power over your life&#x2F;destiny&#x2F;work&#x2F;others something you desire? These are all questions you should ask yourself right now.<p>I talk to my engineers very often about their career goals, and whenever they say they want to be managers, my first response is, &quot;Why?&quot; And then I listen to their reasons, and then I tell them all the reasons why management track career growth doesn&#x27;t meet their goals. I am a _little_ hyperbolic when I talk about these, because in my experience, most people want more money and more responsibility, but do not like endless meetings and talking to people all day long, and the reason I kinda try to talk people out of it is that you can get all of those things WITHOUT becoming a manager. After this conversation, if they still want to pursue management, then I describe the expectations and we set milestones on how to get there.<p>All of this is to say that you need to have that conversation with your manager first. What exactly are the expectations of management vs IC?<p>Some more things to consider:<p>At some point in a management track career, assuming progression on that track, you will have to give up writing code. It will happen. You will eventually manage enough people that you don&#x27;t have time to write code. Is that acceptable to you? If so, then that&#x27;s one thing in favor of management track.<p>Do you like meetings? At some point your entire day will be nothing but meetings. If that&#x27;s OK, then that&#x27;s another in favor of management track.<p>Can you have hard conversations with people effectively? Every manager at some point will have to have a tough conversation with someone about their performance or their personality. Firing people is hard. Giving tough feedback is hard. Doing it well is even harder.<p>Do you hate office politics? If you hate office drama and you hate saying one thing but meaning another, then maybe management isn&#x27;t for you. The higher you go, the more politics plays into it. There are people who will say &quot;don&#x27;t work at a place with office politics,&quot; but in my experience, it&#x27;s unavoidable.<p>Anyway. I could go on for quite a bit about this, but at the end of the day, this is a conversation that YOU need to have with your boss. Make sure you fully understand the consequences of switching away from writing code full-time. It may have far-reaching impacts that you don&#x27;t realize, both within the company and personally. Your own happiness and mental well-being can change drastically. Personally? I love management and I still write code for fun. But the stress that I feel at work is totally different as a manager than it was when I was an IC, and in many ways, that can be a bad thing.<p>Finally, and perhaps contrary to everything I said above, you can <i>always</i> change your mind. If you go into management, and six months down the road you decide you hate it, you can go back to being an IC. Maybe not at your current company. Maybe your own pride or company policy would forbid that. Totally understandable. But you can always find a new role at a new company as an IC. &quot;I didn&#x27;t like it. I very much prefer to be an IC and contribute in that manner&quot; is a perfectly legitimate answer to &quot;Why aren&#x27;t you in management anymore?&quot;<p>Good luck!