Two years ago I made the change. My favorite boss had left the company. His boss left. There was a vacuum in management and they were interviewing to promote from within. I know that for many people the idea of going from writing software to managing people doesn’t sound like a promotion. I respect that.
I wondered if it would be a good fit. I was binge-listening to a management podcast called manager-tools.com. Sometimes I would get through four casts in a day. (Thank you 2x playback!) So much of it made sense. Could I be making a bigger difference this way?
I applied.
I promised myself I would give it two years. Two years before I would consider going back into “just” being a developer. Well, here we are. Two years gone.
I’ve learned a lot. Still so much I don’t know.
My life has come to revolve around critical thinking, hiring, recruiting, schedules, and maybe, just maybe — on a good day — writing software.
A couple of months after getting the job as a manager I sat down and tried to capture what I thought my job meant. I made this mind-map:
Job one was people. What’s the difference between a manager and a developer? “It’s people, stupid!” I knew I needed to be better at meeting people. Building relationships would be critical. Eventually I was going to have to hire people, give them raises. Maybe I’d even have to fire someone some day.
Job two is technology. I was being made a functional manager. All the people that worked for me would share one thing: web development. My job still revolved around technology. I needed to keep my finger on industry trends, stave off corporate stagnation, and give meaningful technical direction to my people.
Finally came product. While delivery schedules didn’t roll up to me I was still part of making sure product was released. How could any other excellence make up for not delivering working product?
Two years later I’m surprised how much of that diagram is still a challenge. Why haven’t I managed to master it all in two years?
I’ve kept the promise I made to myself. I’ve been a manager for two years. I learned a lot. There’s even more I have failed to learn.
What now?
I’m honestly not sure if I’ll be a manager the rest of my career. Maybe I’ll step back into development some day. I’m sure I’ll be a better developer for my time spent on the other side.
As a teen I used a journal to process my life. As an engineering student I used lab notebooks to structure my thinking. I’ll use this venue to collect what I have learned, and to point to some promising ideas and resources.
Feel free to set me straight. If I post a dumb idea then let’s not let that dumb idea go unchallenged.
