Getting back into an IC role as a manager

You may consider switching to an architect track. An architect is still considered an IC in that one does not _manage_ people. But one still is a leader and a "multiplier" of value, because the designs enable multiple engineers to build large solutions. Architects solve technical problems, and often are expected to code the initial or the most important parts of their solutions. This role is sometimes called "staff engineer" or "principal engineer".

I jumped from senior management track to architect track. Moreover, I consciously used the stint in management as a "trampoline" to a senior architect position, which helped both politically and in terms of the crucial soft /business skills I had acquired. This may or may not be a viable path, depending on a company.

I switched from managing a team of 20ish to becoming a Solutions Engineer (other job titles are Sales Engineer, Solutions Architect).

It's pretty common to see ex-managers in this role because you still need to deal with people, but it's generally a much less stressful job than being a manager. You never need to lay anyone off, and you don't have to worry about others dropping the ball as much.

The way I found the role was through a hacker news job posting, however, my strategy was to focus on jobs where my industry, non-technical experience would be helpful. In this situation, I used to manage a team of engineers for an online virtual events company, so I applied for a job where I'd be helping the sales team sell to other online virtual events companies. Because I used to be the customer (as the manager), I had a lot of emotional contexts that someone who hadn't worked in that industry before didn't have.

I got pretty much the same pay too. There will always be a shortage of engineers who are happy to talk on the phone with a customer.

I did it for a while. Held CTO/VPE for 6 years and took an IC role for 2 years in order to learn the latest tech and remember what it’s like to code again.

It was fun! I was a “10x” contributor even though I was a bit rusty at the code part at first.

I knew how to interpret specs, read user and stakeholder minds, ask for help in the right way, and communicate up and down.

I got the role at a series B startup by having a senior dev there vouch for me. I didn’t do a technical interview. I told them they could just fire me after 90 days if they didn’t like the results.

I've done this. It was the right decision for me and I have no regrets. However, it is a personal decision and I'm not going to try to convince you one way or another. Rather, I'll share two posts below by Charity Majors which helped me to come to a decision (I'm surprised they haven't featured in this thread yet!). They're well thought out and it helped me to consider all of the impacts that the decision will have.

The engineer-manager pendulum: https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum...

Questionable advice - is there a path back from CTO to engineer? https://charity.wtf/2022/07/29/questionable-advice-is-there-...

I have made the transition from a engineering manager to IC last year. I had spent 3 years as a EM and that was long enough to lose significant amount of day to day knowledge around engineering. I did 3 months of Leetcode and I got a role a Senior Software Engineer.

Would I do it again, no unless it was within my current company. Jumping to another company after not being hands on for a few years was very difficult. Especially when it came to the system design questions.

Edit: Now that I've made the transition, its great. It was a slow start with the coding aspects. The management background helps a lot for interactions with my peers and junior developers. My peers already think I should be at least the next level in the IC track, but that is probably because I take on responsibilities outside my immediate area.

I switched as a PM to a senior swe+team lead type role. I wanted to try it out and was able to negotiate my way into the job since the project itself was an MVP. Personally, I ended up not liking it to much because I was one of the more experienced and thus was helping out 4 lesser exp. eng. After the role, I was offered a Solutions Engineer/Technical Advisor like role.

Upon reflection, if you really miss coding I'd recommend finding something part-time or a Solutions Engineer role.

Do you miss coding or actually working as an IC? There are plenty of startups where director’s role requires hands on IC work, usually at the early stage (seed or pre-seed).

I did this from more or less managerial role to IC. It was hard initially, i.e. but I got used to it. The most helpful thing was that I continued coding in my free time, so there was some re-learning curve, but it wasn't too steep.

The key here is finding a company which values IC as much as manager which unfortunately isn't true for every company.

For inspiration: https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/mitchell-s-new-role-at-hashic...

Best to join an early stage startup as a technical co-founder or CTO. You get best of both worlds where you get to bootstrap an app and then grow the team.

I’ve been a startup ceo for a year. Absolutely do not like this role and looking for a way to exit gracefully. Appreciate the feeling.

I don't understand the IC role at all. How one transition to that after being a member of a very specific team? Does that mean they are like a bee flying from one flower to the next?