When I first graduated school in 2016 I thought I’d be an individual contributor for 3-5 years then start in a management track. As I’ve progressed in my career I realize what a massive pain being a manager is/can be. Why did you become and manager? Do you regret it? What parts are like you expected, what parts aren’t?
Edit: I have been working as a software engineer for 8+ years
One thing for me is that it's the ability to make decisions that will have a positive impact and being able to have stronger voice with leadership to make things happen.
It's also a stepping stone to leadership where you get have power on what gets done and get the things that bother you addressed for the betterment of the organization.
For me it's a bit of both.
On the one hand, mentorship and teambuilding is very rewarding.
On the other, I'd be lying if said I don't want to be in the room where the big decisions are made. If for no other reason than at least that way I know there's going to be at least one person in that room who will keep people top of mind.
Also, the money
Often the bad managers just went that track for the money.
Often the bad managers just want control, debilitate collaboration, or have psychopathic tendencies.
Like the person who was promoted to manager and then told their entire staff receiving calls during the day is unacceptable and stated if their child's school calls, they have to talk to them first before being allowed to talk to the parent (employee).
Like anyone at a school would reveal private information to a manager.
In our company, being a senior IC and a jr. Mgr. is a lateral move. Very little incentive to make the jump.
I would guess incentive is to eventually become senior manager
Yes but that shows right there the progression potential from there is much higher on the management track. Also there are incentives down the line on the management track that people arent made aware until you get there
This sounds exactly like what I would want being a manger to be like. It sounds like you have a lot of freedom to put together the team you want and a supportive company culture. I think where you are a manager would ultimately by the make or break of the managing experience
Very much so. You don't want to just be a mouthpiece for your company.
100%
I've had good management jobs and bad. The less control and authority I have from higher ups, the less actual true management happens. It becomes more of a dictatorship then discussion and compromise. Most management issues come from higher up in my experience. Or some crazy hr policy lol.
You're a good egg.
Absolutely agree with this. To add to your first point - you can make a much larger impact on the organization with a team than by yourself. Building a team that is capable of improving the organization is a great feeling.
This
To be more involved in the decision making process, future vision/planning, etc.
Do you actually feel like you have power to have input on decisions? In my observed experience unless you are in the c-suite you are just a messenger who has to implement things you may think is completely opposite to what you think should happen
Depends on the company, but yes I have felt I had input on decisions. Some decisions always come from the top, that’s just part of life.
No manager/director has total autonomy with every decision, but you’re hiring/paying someone to guide, build, and lead your department not just be a messenger.
It will 100% depend on the company culture and the respect you engender from those above you.
Like HungryQuote, these were reasons I wanted a manager position. Along with better pay & hours, of course.
I started affecting change with my direct reports first, small changes that improved morale & efficiency. That got noticed and then I started to notice that things I suggested to my seniors were starting to show up in the day-to-day of other teams. Kind of a quiet influence campaign.
You might not get to help decide the company's global direction, but you can have a lot of influence on execution. That's my biggest thing - Yes the initiative that seems to change weekly is ridiculous, here's how we're going to tweak our function to support that initiative without completely upending our workflows.
The ticket here is that you need influence to get things done, and it's hard to earn. I found Cialdini's book Influence talks about 6 principles that are just as helpful for managers. Here's the first 3 for example.
1. Cialdini's first principle is Reciprocity - giving first with no intention of receiving
This can take shape in a few ways. My favorite is to provide resources. Do you have special access to tools, info or data that is useful for your team? The more readily you share them, the more good will you can build up with your coworkers.
2. Commitment and consistency are shockingly hard to find, so when you do what you say you're going to do that already puts you ahead
Especially when you need to compel a coworker to help you, start by acknowledging how you can help them first. Can they benefit from something you have?
An easy one I love doing is offering to share good feedback about them with their manager. It's wild how much impact that can have at the right time for the person you're collaborating with.
Don't you love getting good feedback about your team? Of course, it makes you look good. Offer to do that for whomever you're needing help from, and it can go a long way.
3. "Everyone is doing it" can be a strong source of leverage for getting teams on board
If you know a process or system needs to change, the extra push you need could be from a competitor. Whatever data, industry research, or internal resource you can use can help convince the stakeholder you need to join your cause.
Hope that helps! I've got more resources on the subject too if anyone wants them, just DM me.
I'm a director that leads a team of product managers. I inform my c suite of what the roadmap looks like and only really involve them in the prioritization process if I need more resources and I can't afford to drop anything.
Depends on the industry
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Once you hit the ceiling, management is the only option
lol literally going through this. Take on 4 directs and my base increases 50%. Is it worth the hassle? Prob not.
Same, and the most honest to god answer 😂
In my experience...
People have very different natural skill sets.
I cannot imagine driving a big rig... I do NOT have the patience to deal with people pulling out in front of me in my regular car... never mind my 70,000 lb vehicle. I would end up killing someone!
I cannot imagine dealing with crying babies for a living... I simply could not do it.
Just a couple of quick examples of how some people can easily do things that I cannot.
There are some people who are great at these jobs!
There are some people who are great at quickly and easily developing relationships with the people who work for them, and find managing people a simple task.
There are people who can easily separate out the 'work expectations' from any and all emotions... and find managing people a simple task.
And... I have come to believe that the skills needed to Lead or manage people can be learned.
Find a mentor
Read a variety of books on Leadership and management, and/or listen to podcasts...
And I believe that personal growth is a key to being good at developing relationships with others.
IF we actually give a lot of time and effort to get better at a job (like managing others) and find it difficult and frustrating, then that job is not for us. We should probably pivot and find work that suits us better. Stress kills
For some of us, managing is dealing with crying babies 😂
Your reply should be pinned. I envy those who grew up with mentors and parents who were good at showing management skills and multi-tasking. As you mentioned, there is so much to it and some find it rewarding, even if they thrive on stress and don't show it.
Then of course there are those who are great at the managing aspect, but terrible at how they present themselves.
I had a terrible 4th grade teacher. It was her first classroom and clearly she wasn't cut out for the job. Adults would say, "but teaching 4th grade is hard." Even in 4th grade I knew the answer - not for someone. I feel that way about leadership. If you don't get it, it probably isn't for you. It's a hard job, but not for someone. If you're the someone, it's the best job in the world.
Very good point! Well put.
Nothing feels better than when one of my reports says, "Thank you so much for spending that time with me making sure I understand what I'm doing. No one has ever done that for me before."
I love being the manager I wish I could have had.
Agree 100%. When people ask what my management style is, I just tell them it’s not one sized fits all, you have to adjust based on how your team receives instruction/feedback the best, and I just simply aim to be the manager I would want to work for. If I can’t look at myself in the mirror and say “I’d be happy to work for you”, then I am failing at my job
That last line really nails it.
on the flip side, i manage a support team and what really pushed me into wanting to do it was wanting to be like the managers i did have when i was 23 and just out of college. support sucks ass a lot of the time and i never would have stayed in it and been able to be a manager if it weren't for the good managers i had at that age. my hope is to be one of those managers for someone else
More money, less physical work for me.
To me, it is a thankless job. Employees will hold grudges against you. Upper management want you to instill policies and procedures that you know won’t go well.
Exactly! I went back to being an individual contributor. From my personal perspective, the best managers I've ever had are completely hands off and give you an, "Atta' boy!" every once in a while. The worst are highly opinionated, stick their hands in things and hold one-on-one meetings.
As a manager, I've found one-on-one meetings to be extremely helpful and productive. When done poorly I can imagine they'd be terrible for the IC. If you don't mind, what are some things you've hated about them so I can try to keep mine positive?
That’s exactly what my first thoughts were.
At my job the mangers do more labor than anyone else. 😂
Thankfully, that's not the case for me. 90% less than my previous position.
This is why I started. I was ill educated in my youth and just wanted the power over people, but I grew out of it. x
More money, ability to delegate work to others . Help to develop people and advance their careers
All of this. There's only so much any one person can get done on their own.
More influence over the organization.
More visibility to the strategy.
Ability to influence the strategy and shape the org.
Ability to develop and mentor more engineers.
See more volume of interesting problems as your role is broader, thus gaining more experience per year.
Also the money.
Mixed bag.
The more money I make, the less actual work I do.
It’s nice developing people who are open to it
It’s hard watching people who are not as good at my IC job as I was and don’t care.
It’s hard reporting to people who are not as smart as they think they are, and seeing the ethical issues that are more visible as you go up the ladder.
Money.
I am passionate about my industry (education) and find it rewarding on many levels, albeit quite stressful at times. I became a manager about two years ago and I have gone through a lot of growing pains. However, I’ve learned a lot about myself over the years, particularly how to adapt my leadership style to others and realizing that as a manager, my job is really to support. I have learned to let go a bit and allow my staff to make their own corrections or give them space to make decisions. Instead of me sharing answers right away, I try to help staff walk through various solutions and come to the right answers along the way. I really enjoy problem solving in my line of work and I like to try new strategies. Being a manager, it gives me the flexibility to try new things to better our work without having to worry so much about specific day-to-day tasks.
I love managing. It's constant fire drills, which I thrive on. I love developing people, talking to them, see what makes them thrive. It's like a hard puzzle every day but fun.
I applied to be a manager just for the sake of getting a promotion and for a "trial run" to see if it was for me.
7 months in and I regret it. I'm actively looking for Lead Analyst/Engineer jobs right now.
Thank you for your honesty. I think I like the idea of being a product manager as it seems like you’re more of a people coordinator? But actually managing people seems like a nightmare
Without knowing your situation, I would say you should give it more than 7 months to truly judge if it’s for you or not.
Got recruited into the role. I thought it would be a great opportunity to use my experience to build a program and team at a baby start up. I didn’t expect having to deal with being under-resourced and understaffed for over a year, being IC and manager, leadership that lacks empathy and long term thinking. I’ve enjoyed being a mentor, implementing methods of the best managers I’ve had, creating a positive and mutually supportive team, the salary. Ultimately, I exchanged my health for my job. I’m taking my life back and going back to an IC role at a well-established company in a couple of weeks.
For a lot of people, the skilled labor has a ceiling so they have to move to management to keep moving up.
This is very backwards logic. In fact, in my world, many of the "top people" who moved into management were terrible managers even though they were awesome at their job before that. Ruins a perfectly good career.
I was a manager for a few years, then 6 months ago I moved to a lower non-management position at a different organization making $15k more and not having the headache of supervising people and everything that comes with it. I will avoid managing again as long as possible!!
I wanted to spend more time thinking about optimizing processes, getting a group of individual contributors to operate as a team and to adopt standardized approaches to things like organization, naming conventions, backup coverage etc. what I don’t like is spending so much time on PTO requests, sick days, time cards, HR training, quarterly goals and reviews, bad attitudes, etc
A combination of wanting a different challenge, fulfilling a need, and making more money in the long run.
I consider myself a leader of leaders. So I love being able to develop managers and supervisors.
Always felt like I could be good at it and it looked interesting. I've had a shitload of bad managers and I wanted to be a good manager to people.
Those are my reasons. I think I don't suck at it so I guess I'll keep doing it.
Honestly, I became a manager when the last manager left and I failed to step backwards faster than my peers. Basically shit had to still get done so I did it.
I detested being a manager, but I loved the team I built. over the 5 years or so that I led that team we grew from 9 to 34 devs and testers. From there we added another manager and the team basically doubled. All came crashing down with the FTX debacle destroying the crypto industry and my company laid off a lot of people (30% of the company).
I was a good manager as evidenced by most of my people still being in contact with me... I got this gem just the other day and it's been 18 months now since we parted ways:
I have never had such nice colleague and Manager that was not selfish to make the team shine ✨
We were talking about how this person was doing now and they're thinking about leaving where they're at because their current manager is a micromanager and credit taker. I always gave my people credit, I mean it's obvious I can't be doing everything, and their success is my success, so why not highlight their successes?
But I'm back to being an IC and very happy about that.
I have always been a leader, in groups of friends/strangers/co-workers. It comes naturally to me.
I wanted to become a manager because I wanted to be in the room where it happens.
I enjoy coaching and training teams of people and have cultivated a reputation for fixing broken operations.
I dislike the politics amongst my peers and above and have never played the game instead believing the cream rises to the top.
Being a manager allows you to have higher impact. It's like being an octopus with 8 arms instead of a human with two. You can drive strategy direction and see a larger impact and implementation of your ideas.
The secondary benefit is that you can often be more in control of your daily/weekly timing. Sure , you might be on more meetings,but you can set when and how often they happen and have flexibility to move them around. Not usually the case for an IC.
Third benefit is more money and better comp. Naturally the further up and more impact you drive,the better compensated you get.
I love building and leading teams and getting people and missions turned around.
I thought people would be easier than code 🙄
As a software engineer, the only thing that sounds worse than dealing with software is managing people who are dealing with software 😂
I thought hey I know myself as a dev pretty well. If I manage people the way I want to be managed, productivity will skyrocket! But turns out, other people are stubborn too.
I still have to do all the hard dev work. I just have to do it between meetings. 🙄
Initially for two reasons - the assistant manager was leaving and we were a small restaurant and I felt I could help the GM with organization and the smaller tasks. I also really didn’t want a brand new person coming and bossing me about 😂
The second time, it was offered to me. The GM was largely checked out and they needed someone to pick up the slack.
As time has gone, I’ve realized that there are certain parts of management that I like. I’ve moved nearly entirely into the operations side of things. I enjoy helping the business run more smoothly by keeping things organized, setting up SOPs, planning events etc. I’ve realized I don’t particularly like managing people so I’m lucky that I work with someone who prefers that side of things and hates the admin side. So we balance each other out pretty well.
Money.
I only ever agreed to management positions because I used to be terrible at saying no lol The money helps but I never really wanted it, though it did give me some good experience and stories.
I got into management because I like to help people develop their skills. Helping someone on the team to go from point A to Point B assisted by your feedback and advice is very rewarding. Being able to assemble an entire team and see the team succeed and solve problems with the strategy and vision you had 1-2 years earlier is a great feeling. That and the money is not bad :)
Money.
And honestly it’s kind of nice to be able to peek up and see the direction winds are blowing. I know I don’t have all the puzzle pieces but I can infer a lot and help my team understand why we do something the way we do even if it doesn’t make sense at the base level. And sometimes I can figure out that it doesn’t make sense and effect change.
But mostly money.
I mean people enjoy different things. For me, I don’t have any formal education beyond high school so I kind of naturally ended up in customer service. From there management is the only way to really start earning decent money. But I do quite enjoy it. I have decent soft skills. I love training and giving recognition when things are done well. You have troublesome employees and customers sometimes, but it’s extremely satisfying to solve problems.
I was a pretty good developer. Loved to hammer out code, all day all night. But after a while, I realized that every 2-5 years, I was going to have to dump my current skillset and take on new languages. I wanted to hire the engineers, and deliver big things. I talked to my manager, and he agreed that it would be a struggle but could be done. I started taking administrivia tasks off him on a regular basis, right down to writing the department status report for him to review and edit.
Eventually our director called me in and we had a nice talk. She was a former IBM exec, and our shop was primarily IBM except the division we were in. She asked me why and I said, when I write code I conceptualize large scale processes and procedures in my brain. I want to instead work with those all the time.
She sent me down to HR to talk about a new compensation project they wanted to roll out. I essentially ran the entire project, with lots of guidance, and we delivered a perfect product to 50000 employees. I had no issue with the scope, budget, resourcing, it was natural.
I was promoted to manager and given a window cubicle. I took a lot of razzing from the other folks on what was now my team. But I'd hand picked most of these people over the last couple years and they were solid and I knew we'd be successful.
The next dozen years are blurry, but eventually I hit a ceiling at corporate. I took the package, and went into a startup and have been in the C Suite ever since.
Why? Because I WRITE THE SONGS now.
I stepped into management for two years - then stepped back out. Was software engineer as well. I really enjoy the mentoring aspects. I did enjoy trying to orchestrate the team to their strengths and weakness and planning that stuff out.
For me I don't enjoy interviewing - I am not sure who does. But I enjoyed finding some young bright engineers who were excited and getting to hire them on and just working with them to grow.
Good critical feedback was really hard for me - I really tried to lean into it and definitely did get better - albeit a little late.
I was already in a lot of meetings as a senior engineer - but I may have underestimated how much load even just bi-weekly 1-1s would add to my calendar. I had a team of 11 by the end which was in my opinion a little large with trying to keep up 1-1s and such. I needed some good dev leads under me I think to handle more of the day to day questions - I had a software architect who helped but I think we needed more.
Every situation is unique. Mine was with an enterprise - we had been bought and were small. So I had a bit of culture shock when it was review time and they had the review scale where I HAD to have two people with an under average rating. Like I was pressured and ended up changing two reviews because I had debated but the two did have issues taking directions and getting their stuff done.
Then the company cut raises. I know in business world it happens - and it wasn't for me it was for my team I was upset - and there was one individual I had wanted to bring compensation up by a fair bit so I had given the highest rating and my director was on board with. But with no raises meant they wouldn't be doing anything even for an outstanding rating. I think there is/was some financial issues going on.
Anyways that was my last straw - so I found another developer job and am quite happy doing that. I've realized I can do my mentoring from a dev lead position and such. I might not have the power to truly do that other stuff but I think I can still do a lot from this role. I also heavily like solving problems - which as a manager your goal is to help OTHERS solve problems - which is great. But I get a heavy satisfaction from actually doing it.
So for me - this time it didn't work out. One day in a smaller/mid company maybe I'd try again - but I think I'll stick here for a quite a while and maybe forever since it makes me happy and gives me a good balance.
I became a manager after an acquisition to stem the tide of poor decisions that were inevitable going to be pushed down by the new upper management.
It really depends on your personality type.
And old saying that is as true today as it was years ago...
One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
The Rhetoric of Dissent in John Henry Cardinal Newman’s Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864)
I became a manager when I realized there was no one else on the team that would do it better.
I am content to work for a good manager but will take the job when needed.
I am because as tech is my background and the older I get the harder is to keep up with the tech. I would prefer to just know enough and to manage people and projects
I knew I had the ability to do it so I went for it. Over a decade later I’m ready to step back and let someone else have the headache. It’s babysitting in its simplest form.
Money and transferable skills. I hate it.
I manage 4 ICs. They are rockstars so they do all the work I ask of them and more. I literally work 2-3 hours most days making $400k.
More money, involvement, access to information, and (relative) power.
For the money ( serious)
More money. Very few careers have an upward trajectory in pay as an individual contributor. Software is one exception, not sure how many more.
I love management and have always been good at it. Every job Ive ever had ended up with people naturally looking to me to lead and make decisions anyways so might as well get paid for work I was already doing.
Management is a different skill set that seems to naturally connect with my personality. I love (and trust myself more than others) to make strategic decisions. I love training and helping my team facilitate their goals and hit their career milestones.
I love large scale planning and oversight as opposed to needing to be super detail oriented and technical when actually implementing plans and would rather let my more skilled team work on that aspect of it.
Management fits me like a glove and I would much rather management than being an individual contributor.
I was already doing the problem-solving and final document revisions for our department and had a particularly good eye for predicting how seemingly small external decisions impact our department when a manager position already opened up (I was one of several supervisors at the time).
When I was asked to assume the role, I was tepid. I realized that I would spend months training someone new to the company if I didn't take it. I couldn't stomach spending months training another new boss on what we do. The money didn't hurt at all, but it was not wanting to teach another boss that "When Hatefulpenguin says this is going to happen, it's going to happen."
I like that I am now in a position to cut through some of the delay, because I have the knowledge and trust, but now I have the title to get things done. I like that I'm one of a few millennial managers in the company, and we are extremely vocal for employees' rights.
I hate herding cats. Thank god for supervisors, because, when I do get tapped in on some of the interpersonal issues, I find it exhausting. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to call a meeting and remind everyone that A) we are not in high school, B) watch your fucking tone, and C) You know what just keep everyone else's name out of your damn mouth if you aren't asking them a question. God I wish I was still an IC.
Depending on the industry, means less physical work and getting paid more money. More money for less actual work.
I like mentoring people. I like setting strategy. I like solving problems. That’s about it.
There’s no way I would want to be anything other than a manager. When it works, it works so well and can be the most rewarding part of the job.
But it is often a thankless job which is why everybody here stay complaining 😂 If you’re doing it for the money, you’ll absolutely hate it. And then you’ll come back here to complain about it 🙂
And always remember, just because you’re GOOD at something doesn’t mean you should MANAGE others. Being an IC doesn’t mean shit when it comes to managing people, teams, and workflows. So if you’re not passionate about people, step away slowly.
For me with my skillset, managing is easier. I'm not the fastest worker, I'm bored by routine, and Im incredibly social with a tendency to get really invested in people. As a manager I get a wider range of tasks to accomplish, I get to put out the fires which is fun, and I get to help build people's careers and pull them up the ladder behind me. It's immeasurably more fulfilling then checking the same boxes each and every day for hours on end.
I've never understood other managers complaining about the position, tbh. Most of us get to spend our days thinking, emailing, communicating, and planning instead of having to tear apart shelves for planograms and rotations day in and day out. I legit think I should be paid less than the people who have to do that.
I became manager 13 years into my career. I honestly did not ever see myself doing it.
When the lack of good applicants for an open manager position came up, I thought to myself, “well I wouldn’t want anyone else managing us, I’ll do it myself.”
I did it out of love. No other reason. I loved my team, and I still do. I did not want them to suffer under someone who was new or terrible. I have their support. 3 years on going. It’s not without its issues, but I made the best decision for the team, and in retrospect, for myself.
Some people like the extra responsibility.
I became a manager to take care of my team. Seriously. I wouldn’t do it if it was just for the money or “power.” My position provides me with the means to have influence over their quality of life at work (and ultimately at home).
I tell every new manager to be a crap filter for their team, not a pump.
I didn't really want to be, I kinda fell into it, and now I'm just here. I'm still new, working out a lot of stuff, being humbled quite a bit, but I enjoy it for the most part. I'm now on a path to a solid career that I didn't think was possible only a year ago, given my lack of education and qualifications.
I was a software engineer for 22 years. I swore I would remain an IC until I retired. I worked my way up to senior staff at a large tech company. I changed jobs and failed to ramp up on the tech stack as fast as I should have and I had to admit to myself that I was burned out on coding and needed a change of pace. My company needed more managers so I asked if I could transition to management.
I threw myself into becoming a great manager and I’ve really come to love this role. I get to help people grow in their careers and mentor them from my extensive experience. I’m especially lucky that I manage a platform team and get to set our team’s roadmap and plans. I am still technical enough to review design documents and help engineers to avoid gotchas as we traverse complex projects.
Software is built by organizations of people and as we know from Conway’s Law, the org structure influences the architecture of software. So building teams and helping structure an organization can have a big impact on the efficiency and quality of life of the engineers working on the software.
So I still think of myself as an engineer even though I’m not building things directly.
Of course there are parts of the job that suck, but that’s true for any job. When I was younger, the cons of management would have outweighed the pros, but as I matured that calculus changed. Being a manager can be a thing you do later if you so choose and the longer you stay technical, the better you’ll be at managing more senior engineers.
I watched too many people who shouldn’t be managers be a poor manager and thought I could do better for the people around me.
I get tired of managing people’s bitching - from the top down. But I like running a team, making more money and not being the cog myself.
Glass ceilings and wanted more money to retire early. Rather be a manager and retire in my 40s than be an IC for much longer. I've been in management for just under 10 years now, think it was worth it but god being an IC was way more fun.
I’m a supervisor. I’ve always been a hard worker and wanted to work my way up in a company and become a decision maker. With that said, I see the immense stress that my boss is under. 60 hour work weeks, unpaid overtime with work that just has to get done. Having to respond to things on the weekends when typically we only work Monday-Friday. I go back and forth whether I think it’s worth it or not.
Because they failed up and wanted to squeeze some form of unearned authority over people they unrightly feel superior to. Not realising they are just another layer in the shit sandwich of whatever company they work for and are just as replaceable as the shit kickers they look down upon.
Oh and a lil extra in their pay
I needed the money. Avoided management like the plague for 24 years, but we bought the Money Pit house and it demands frequent monetary sacrifices. I was unsuccessful finding something higher paying outside of management so I'll be doing this for the next few years.
I think it also depends on what kind of industry and department you are managing.
I'm a manager of a team of 4 senior level accountants. I love coaching, learning, building things with them etc.
But in my same company, there are nurse managers and AP managers. And they have about 30 direct reports... That doesn't seem appealing to me at all.
That scene from the movie Waiting, where the manager explains the perks of the job.. I was sold.
well I don’t want to be told what to do and the pay is better. it is basically like being a babysitter at my job
I was individual contributor-HR man for many years, then supervisor, then group manager. The manager job was very satisfying until awesome VP retired. New VP was in my opinion, a corporate terrorist and the job became miserable. I went back to individual contributor but VP terrorist kept handing me manager tasks without the pay and without the backing. I left. My conclusion: manager roles are good if there is a capable and professional leader above.
Usually money. As individual contributed you eventually max out and management is the only option to make more
My gf got pregnant so I took the management position that was open due to needing more money haha.
Management sucks, my hire ups have a ridiculous amount of expectations that my team cannot execute. And they are currently trying to PIP me outa here. So thats fun 🤷
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I like leadership, stress, and the pay raises have been nice. I enjoy having a big impact and investing in people.
But you're right, it's not for everyone.
More money, less work in the middle of the night and I like mentoring people. Overall, I like it and would not want to go back to just do the engineering roll.
I had been an individual contributor for 14 years and had a good number of shitty bosses. I got to a point where I was tired of having to defend my work from managers that didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. At one point, I said to myself that I could do their job easily.
Been at it for 2 years now, my people love what I do for them and my bosses are happy with my work and leadership.
It's also fun to build a team and build a culture
I love it. I love encouraging and developing talent, making sure things run smoothly, settling little issues, seeing my team accomplish fantastic things.
money?
I want the stability and I want less project work so I won't be pulling as many long nights so I can have a kid. It's also the only way to make enough to have a kid where I live. But that said I have a tiny team where all but one person are truly like adults about their job so they're a joy to manage
Money
Because some people don’t wanna do a better route. College is hard, expensive too.
I wanted to get into management when I worked retail. Before I found out how many barriers were in place. All the talk of "have a degree in something and it proves you have what it takes!" What a load that was. All my ASMs while I was just a lowly Inventory Manager were the laziest bunch of so-and-so's.
When I got into construction management, that's where my problem solving capabilities really shined. I outclassed my bosses brother, his highschool friend, the salespeople, and the boss himself in my ability to solve problems and stay organized.
From managing the installs, to managing the warehouse and the product going in and out, to the guys and who went to what job-site and how long it would take. Everyone deferred to me.
Even after leaving my last job the salespeople - that branched off in their own business because my previous employer has gone under - reached out to me because they wanted me to come plan and coordinate the work for them.
That's why I got into management. Problem solving is what I do best.
Have a larger impact on the organization.
Management skills are very different from IC skills. If you are a stellar engineer and you enjoy being an engineer, then find companies that reward ICs without forcing them to either be managers or stagnant.
People shouldn't go into management unless that's actually what they want to do -- and unless they have the people skills to do it.
It's fun for me. I like it all. Deadlines, big projects, managing people. Working under pressure has always been a strong suit. Been doing it for 18 years almost.
I have 3 reasons why I took up management. The pay, the daily challenges, and being in charge.
I don't make an incredible amount of money but it's more then my employees. It allows me more flexibility to pursue my hobbies and interests. I'm also not stressing about rent or bills which I'm very grateful for.
I became a manager to embrace new challenges everyday. I can say that everyday is new and that's what keeps me engaged in general. You never know if the day is going to be smooth sailing, if you'll be putting out fires all day, or somewhere in between. I enjoy handling everything from running time cards to handling HR related stuff.
I thrive in an environment that I can take charge in. Or at the very least, have some say in Buisness opportunities. I try to build a sound minded team who can relate to Everyday struggles while also remaining engaged with tasks at work.
The biggest drawback to being a manager is I don't have a space to vent. I have an open door policy to my employees and I think they all take great advantage of it. I encourage them to talk to me about whatever is on their mind whether it's work related or personal related. I'm thankful I have a partner who allows me to do that in a safe environment. I also don't get a lot of time off, that's not a huge drawback to me personally but it's worth noting if you want to become a manager one day
I have lots of ideas for improvement of systems and as a normal worker, I would only get to do a small fraction of those. As a manager, I get to do far more. Also, it is rewarding to mentor people further in their careers. Honestly, I would probably be making just slightly less money if I didn't move to management as my company has a great track for promotion for workers and none for managers so I haven't ever received a significant raise as a manager. I am working to change that but only have so much influence.
I never planned on becoming a manager but I’m a natural born leader and as someone who is data driven and solution focused, it was easy to succeed. I’m also a very driven person, always trying to improve so it was a natural progression for me.
The hardest part of my job is actually the entry level folks’ complaining non-stop. I understand their position, as I also started in their spot many years back and can be relatable. The drama and gossiping are things I absolutely hate but it comes with the industry.
The other difficulties is if my leadership style/principles don’t align with the company/senior leaders then it makes things tough. I once took a job with a company that expected me to be a micromanager and constantly hound employees, I knew that didn’t align with my core values so I left.
For me, there’s 2 parts: the process and the people.
I absolutely love delegating, bringing the company vision to life via metrics, process improvement, and seeing to it that goals are met. I’m in operations management.
To me, what I do is rewarding because I’m such a numbers person, I get to see where we stand as a team. I also have strong interpersonal skills so interacting with my team brings me joy. Being able to mentor and help with growth development to get hourly folks promoted is fulfilling. I enjoy motivating and building a company culture where the team is happy to work hard towards a common goal without scare tactics. They say people will work hard if they feel appreciated and valued so I try my best to ensure they know I recognize their hard work.
It isn’t for everyone. Helping others and making a better work environment is very fulfilling to me. For example, dealing with performance issues is a pain, but it’s a huge impact on your team. It makes everyone’s work environment better.
I have been a manager for 25 years. I briefly went back to technical and didn’t find it as fulfilling. I do not regret it at all.
If you want to make money, though, especially as a software engineer, you can probably make more as an individual contributor.
Well you can either be the guy picking up boxes or driving a forklift, or be the guy telling those people what to do
Money and not being stuck behind a screen in terms of work. Also like the devising strategy and planning part.
I didn't want to be on the phones anymore, so I made a change.
No desire to move into management. At my work, I like to say "if they dont kill you in your manager role, they make you a director."
I didn't want to. I'm just glad I did.
Source: 25+ years of credit/collections. Stopped being a manager by choice for about 10+ years. Unwillingly stepped back up and accepted it when they fired my predecessor. Still here after 13 years. Great team.
I had a great manager for years and felt like all the many complainers on different teams at my organization were just making noise.
Then my great manager got promoted to another location and I was reassigned. Wow, I quickly understood why the complainers were complaining.
I made it my quest to become a manager so I could be like my mentor had been for me. I learned it's so hard to be a *good* manager and very easy to be a bad one. Also, it's nowhere near as easy as it looks and takes a lot of time to figure it out. Around 5-6 years into it and I'm still not as good as my mentor, but I am trying.
I did it because I wanted to be a bridge between management and engineering. Lots of managers struggle to work with engineers and engineers can be so narrowly focused they don't see the big picture. As a manager I get a broader view of what's going on and then I can apply the team members with the best fit skills to the tasks. I really like building the team to accomplish greater things that they could alone. I also enjoy having some autonomy to set direction for myself and my team.
Don't be fooled that the job is telling people what to do all the time. Mostly it's finding what they need to be successful, what barriers you can remove and keeping the team focused on the larger goals.
Mostly, it's the obvious. Most people become a manager for the power. Humans have a natural instinct to pursue power, in all its forms, and an even deeper instinct to deny that they're doing so.
There are a few exceptions:
Some become a manager because it represents career progress and ambition in an abstract sense, some become a manager because they're afraid they aren't smart enough to be an IC or that they'll get there as they age.
A few become a manager because they want to help others.100% of everyone claims that this is the reason they became a manager. Those who *actually* become a manager for this reason usually hate it and stop. I was one of those. You sound like you would be too.
Personally, I had so many awful managers that left me emotionally scarred that I started to feel like it was a moral obligation to shield at least a few others from that fate. I knew I wouldn't last, but it was like military service. I had to do what I could. It sounds like you should do the same.
I used to think that people sometimes become a manager because they seem like they'd make a good manager, but I learned otherwise. There are so many people asking to become a manager that it's rare for someone who doesn't seem like they want to do it to get the job over someone who does, even though this almost always results in the best potential managers staying out of management. I once founded a nonprofit while I was an IC at my day job, built it up from nothing to a big, high-visibility success, and I heard that people were telling each other that I'd make a great CEO behind my back. Among the people who said I'd make a great CEO were the CEO of the company where I worked and the only person ever to be Steve Jobs' boss. I was pretty sure that I'd make a good manager as well, but I wasn't sure I'd like it, so I didn't ask. I really thought someone was going to try to talk me into it, though. Not only did nobody ever ask, but nobody I knew seemed to share my surprise.
Money
Money, growth, making my team better!!! I actually decided to go to another company and my team is super sad and it makes me feel like they truly appreciated me. I had a lot of fun with them and we became the leading shop in my district. It’s not for everyone though. You gotta get past the BS and be honest and real with your team about the goal that needs to be reached. And reward hard work and help those who struggle because everyone learns at different speeds.
I went into management to have more control and say over my work. Also, there is usually a pay ceiling you reach as an individual contributor that the only way to overcome is to be part of management.
If you are a natural leader, you will succeed as a manager. Most people get bogged down in details and prefer to do what they know best...
but they lack the broader vision and skills needed to take bigger projects from inception to completion.
They look for guidance and feedback from someone who can see the big picture and all the moving parts and guide the team to deliver...
This sounds grandiose ..but that's the role I play...not every manager has to play this role but know that a lot of people do well in their jobs but also need handholding and oversight.
Been my experience, people who yearn to be management, don't want it for the personal growth or betterment of the company, but a need to feel powerful and lord that over thier underlings. Most fall into this category. Have met and witnessed a few good leaders, but very rare. Where I'm at, being an overbearing asshole is seen as competence and confidence.
I start my first management job tomorrow, so maybe I’ll learn that I don’t like it. But, for now, I wanted it because I’ve had some really great managers personally and I want to carry on those skills myself. I also just enjoy mentoring people and removing impediments for people as a leader.
Managing and learning to manage people and departments is more challenging than just trying to learn the grunt work. Challenging yourself and your team leads to personal growth. It allows you to see what you lack
Initially wasn’t totally aware of it, but it turned out I truly enjoy leading others. Not in the least, no regrets at all. The longer I have been in a leadership position, the more I have come to love it. I thrive on supporting my team. Wasn’t quite sure what to expect, the position kind of just dropped in my lap.
Motivation:
Managing people is flipping a coin IMHO. I've had some rockstars. I've had some duds, I've had to fire people and lay people off. That part sucks, but the reward from creating a team from nothing (or in my case, rebuilding a team after it imploded but still served a business function) is highly rewarding.
It did not start out as a factor because I was never money motivated (which makes me weird with my career in sales) but I now, more than ever, feel like I'm being paid what I'm worth, and I am earning sufficient money for saving for a forever home for my family.
In the Navy I managed a work center and about 10 people. I loved taking care of my people and knowing they had the tools to succeed. I disliked the way a lot of my higher ups treated us (and the Navy in general) and figured the only way to see the changes I wanted was to do so from within.
The cache
I like organizing people more than I like doing repetitive tasks and more money. I like it better but I still don’t love it. There’s a lot of emotional strain from managing people and would love a break some days
Just the money. I have no social life anyway, so working 50-70 hour weeks is whatever.
Pay
It trains a lot of skills that other jobs don’t. Leadership, listening to people, crucial conversations. Lots of emphasis on emotional regulation in tough situations. Helping people both employees and clients, problem solving complex people, organizational, and process issues. I think with the proper mindset it can really help a person mature… if that’s your focus. I try to tell people this before they take the role as it can be incredibly challenging and hard to see the benefits in the beginning. Pay is also good too.
Pay
Helping develop Others and seem them succeed.
Money and some more influence / respect doesn’t hurt either but it was never the main reason. I think ppl who go into management for those tend to be the bad power hungry managers who hold their ppl back to make themselves look good. Which happens a lot.
Because it’s what you have to do if you want to make more money and move up the ladder.
For me, it’s to pass on good managerial skills so that at least there’s a few more fair managers in the workforce.
Software engineering manager here. 17 years in industry and 3 as a manager.
I feel like I'm able to have a larger impact on technical decisions and I'm a multiplier for the team. It's very rewarding to have a really great team and watch them work, but it can also be very frustrating if things are impeding the work. My job is to remove those impediments and make it so they can get more done. As an engineer, I felt like I just had to accept too many things as they were, even when they impeded code being developed and deployed.
I was definitely like you, OP. I didn't see myself going into management until about 3 years ago. I saw the need and decided I could fill that need. As an employee, I think that's our job to fill the need of the company. At that time, the greatest impact I could have was to work out some of the organizational and architectural challenges and I couldn't do that in the development role.
To be clear, I keep up with technology and review code, non blocking. I make suggestions and review designs and architecture decisions. I find people's strengths and weaknesses and will get more involved to play to those strengths and work on the weaknesses. I believe I am able to spend time working on the larger picture more often and I love that kind of work.
If I had to summarize, I'd say my goal is to have a multiplying effect on everyone else's efforts (ideally more than 1x 😉). The most satisfying thing I do is mentor engineers and help them grow their skills, especially the soft skills that are often neglected.
Do I regret it? No. Do I sometimes want to go back? Yes. Will I go back? Not likely. My current career goal is to expand my influence on the organization, meaning working towards the director of eng level and then maybe C suite, but I'm not in a huge hurry. I enjoy working directly with the team. Managing managers is not on my plate right now.
I wanted to be the supportive manager that I’ve only had the joy of having once, I wanted to be better than the shit ones.
And I was. But sadly at a company that was trash, so I moved on from the company and because of that bad experience, I’m not quite as eager to climb back up the ladder.
I was a leader at a restaurant in my teens/early 20s and really enjoyed the people leading aspect of the role. I made some process improvements at the restaurant that people in my professional career are impressed by (since I was so young when I managed it) and it played a role in getting the role I’m in now.
I work in the insurance industry in the customer service department for a large American insurance carrier and just became a manager. It’s my first time being a leader in a professional environment. My salary literally doubled overnight and I’m just a couple thousand dollars shy of 100k/yr in a LCOL area at only 30 years old. It’d take much longer to reach that salary outside of management, and I don’t know a single person in my personal life that makes that much, even people twice my age. So the money is the the main appeal for me as I want to retire young, but I understand that enjoyment from leading people plays a part too. I love leading my team and helping them develop.
I did it because I love helping people realize their potential.
Last month one of my employees called me crying because a customer was rude to her. I assured her we all have bad days and she's a good worker. Few weeks later she took some of my advice and got commendations for being a top employee.
It's easy to dwell on the bad apples sometimes, but there's so many that can become something with the proper guidance. My hope is one day I'm working alongside them or maybe even under them.
Individual contributor manager roles are where it is at for me. No direct reports and I own my little function in the business and it pays well in my case. I’ll need to jump up into people management one day if I want to continue to increase my pay.
Only thing motivating me to step up is money.
I am the owner and manager of a company. I don’t regret it, I like managing people however the part I didn’t expect is that everyone acts like a helpless mentally damaged 2 year old. I started out thinking “I will be a different kind of manager and give everyone freedom bc I hate being micromanaged myself so I don’t wanna treat people that way.” Then, everyone abused the hell out of my lax rules and I realized that wasn’t gonna work - none of them appreciated the freedom I was giving them and all of them abused that freedom. So I had to get everyone on a tighter leash, which sucks bc I didn’t want to have to do that but I also couldn’t keep going with no one literally doing any work. That repeated over and over and over - anytime I tried to do something nice for anyone, they just took advantage of me. Bitched and moaned about the fact I wasn’t giving them MORE!!! For example: I gave everyone 2 weeks PTO for the winter holidays, and instead of wow hey thanks! I got a bunch of people complaining that it wasn’t 3 weeks, or complaining that they didn’t get Halloween off too, etc etc. It made me feel unappreciated and undervalued and made me also feel everyone was an entitled lazy jerk. So I just went back to the old school kind of management, strict, micromanaging people, and sadly that seems to work in the sense that people get their work done, productivity is up, and people bitch and moan less. Now we have 4 days PTO for the winter holiday and a PTO blackout period around the holiday and it sucks. I’d love to go back to 2 weeks PTO myself personally but if I do that, everyone will be unhappy it isnt more AND they’ll not get their work done before the holiday and it will all fall on me to finish so nope - we now mostly work thru it. I have a remote team and I started out trusting people to work from home and then everyone overbilled their hours and got nothing done and missed all deliverables so I had to provide computers to everyone pre loaded with a bunch of screen tracking and keystroke technology (obvs disclosed to everyone) to monitor what people actually did all day and to ensure they were billing time correctly. Again I fucking hate this but people are just unable to NOT be lazy liars so what else can I do?
I’m just stuck bc if I’m nice I’m taken advantage of but if I’m mean I feel like a horrible person. But I need the work done so I’ve learned to just accept that I hate people now and to accept they suck and to just move on with my life. Sadly.
Purely monetary. And it puts me in a position to run things as I see best. I ignore a lot of policies from corporate (I pay cash bonuses out of my quarterly and yearly bonus to my workers, and I dont make anyone clock out for lunches something thats only supposed to be a manager perk) and basically run the shop as I wished it had been ran when I was coming up.
I’m an electrician, was asked to be a foreman which I happily accepted and have been for 4 years. I was asked to be a general foreman in charge of the department for a large multinational firm. I didn’t accept that willingly. I did negotiate a pay bump but managing lots of people and internal customers is a pain. I’ll run it for a while and see how it goes. My boss is difficult being quite a few problems stem from him. I will solve some problems on my own but navigating corporate life and rules is a headache I for now am dealing with
Money
18 years as a software and data engineer I moved to manager because I learned it's all the same even as the web 2.0.came and left. When I mean the same. CPUs and memory and storage all have very simple needs even in the cloud. Yet if you are writing the code things shift all the time, you have to stay on top of everything as it changes. That's a hard thing to do forever unless you stay a l1 level your entire career.
But the basics are the same and helping people understand those basics and grow their knowledge and skill as part of their career can be very rewarding. Just to work for a bad. company
Money. It's always for more money
Different personalities
Secondly for the money. I am an engineer, I get paid happy as an engineer. Others don't make the bucks until they're managing their roles.
ive always looked at work as - someone pays me to do a job or for my time. end of the day - i work for me. i put in extra , do more than i have to, and in return i expect to go about my day as i choose. much easier to be this way when you're not an hourly employee.
i also love putting a good team together. and it truly made me feel good that my last team of staff was up in arms that i got fired for some falsehoods.
If your ultimate goal is to become a Director or above, being a Manager is the only path. Money is pretty good too. If you don't mind delegating work, being part-time therapist and career counselor and perform hiring/firing, you should do well.
At least for me, it's the easiest way to bigger paychecks. The only other way is education and mannnnn, I've got video games to play.
Money and power. If you have the right personality and approach you can adjust the role to be less taxing and draining than it usually calls for
Personally, I never pursued the job, worked as an individual contributor for 17 years and enjoyed the challenges of getting deep into the weeds of software development. Then two managers left at around the same time and I was kind of thrust into the role. I do enjoy the new challenges of people management though, and am a lot better at it than I ever thought I would be. Then again, I always had the opinion that the best managers are the ones that don’t necessarily want it, and actually know the job their direct reports are doing.
Because I wanted to do things my way and I like having more autonomy.
I believe it depends on company culture and what your belief of the definition of a good manager is. If you want to drive positive change, build a great team, and help develop them you have a very different outlook to someone who wants to be able to tell people what to do and be paid more money than their co-workers. Don't want to be a manager - want to be a GOOD manager
I switched to IC 15 years ago after being a manager/exec for eons. I’m a manager again only because I wasn’t asked to be, I was told. Have a good team, but I really would prefer a million times over to be an IC again.
I've refused multiple times at my workplace. It just sounds horrible.
I did it for 10 years before retiring. It was great. I was able to make decisions and help younger people advance their careers. It was stressful as sh-t though, but it was absolutely worth doing.
I figure if I don’t some prick will. I’d rather work for someone like me than some jerk that’s in it just to push ppl around. Call it “damage control”. But yeah, it can be a huge pain in the butt sometimes.
I worked in the public sector (think government agencies) in the US and UK, so somewhat different than a corporate setting. If I'm honest, the attraction was much less the people management and more the opportunity to work at a higher level on the substance. This had a couple of aspects. One was just being across more projects - supervising the work of others meant I got to engage for a few hours or days on things where others were putting in weeks or months. To put it bluntly, I was able to be involved in the most interesting bits and not do all the donkey work. The other part was having more opportunity to influence policy. This included being in on big-picture policy discussions with senior leaders and having the authority to make lower-stakes policy decisions.
You can use the skills you learn in your personal life.
Big companies like the bank I work in so not reward individual contributors outside a few specific roles. That's it.
I didn't want to. But it was the only way I could marginally advance/get a raise. I hate managing people
For me, it’s about being valued for my decision making (instead of X technical skills which can be repetitive after a while when I was more junior in my career). Sometimes, this relates to staffing, other times project management, other times engagement with stakeholders or other entities and especially when it’s organizational direction and/or internal operations.
I also enjoy being a problem solver where any of my team members can come to me with roadblocks they are having. Maybe it’s a technical issue, maybe they are facing hurdles with stakeholders, or maybe they just need a good old fashioned confidence boost.
Finally, I find mentorship rewarding and meaningful. Helping staff members see and then reach their potential is fulfilling.
To get paid for the work that I am doing already in my role.
I like to guide people and make the workplace efficient, productive, and a pleasant place to work. I can’t do any of that unless I’m manager. I’ve been in shitty workplaces in the past where I wasn’t able to accomplish anything due to mismanagement above me….those jobs made me regret being the manager because we were all unhappy and I couldn’t do anything about it.
To make more money
I was a manager early in my career and swore I’d never do it again. I hated the cranky people, the whining, and having to “talk to” someone for an infraction I thought was BS. (Skirt too short, nails too long, too “unprofessional”).
Years later I was asked to serve as interim manager for a team, and have been there ever since. I’m helping people advance in their careers, coaching people who were on the border of losing their jobs, and supporting the goals of the organization while ensuring my team has the resources and support they need to have work-life balance and interesting projects.
Never thought I’d be here, but I’ll retire in a few years with a succession plan and a solid crew.
I've never been a manager, but I am interested in becoming one.
The reasons being a few things. I really enjoy the strategy behind business and it adds complexity to a job that I generally want experience in. Wheter I contiune long term or not, it's a career booster.
Pay is usually more so that's a bonus.
I like working with people and dealing with relationships, good bad and focusing on growth long term. I love seeing people set goals and achieving them and being a part of that journey seems fulfilling to me.
Lastly, and this is all arrogance, but a lot of managers I meet just coast and just go through motions. I would be really fair and interested in fixing people's problems instead of just PIPing them and I feel I can do the job better than previous managers. I assume I will be humbled very fast when given the opportunity. :)
More money and a chance to impact the organization at a greater scale than I could as an IC.
Was very successful as an IC (director level technical track), but switched over to management a year ago.
4.
Depends on the industry, that’s for sure. Being a manager in retail and/or hospitality can be torture.
Try taking Myers Briggs MBTI test. There are 16 different personality types. I am a natural born leader and it’s in me to be in a leadership position.
Also more money, managers get bonuses at our company and it’s pretty good amount.
Money...You make more money.
Flexibility...You usually have more control over scheduling and can make a schedule that both benefits you and the business.
Coaching Up...There is nothing better in business than helping develop someone and see them be successful and advance in their career.
Input...Managers will likely have more input into the direction of the company and can help bring change.
Less Supervision from Others...As you move up in management you get more less direct supervision and as long as you produce you are left mostly alone.
I have managed others and despise it, but my wife loves it. She would genuinely rather have the position she has now managing people than one that paid twice as much as the one she has now if the more profitable position didn’t include management.
I can’t speak for others, but with her it’s a deep seated need to control her environment and the people in it so strong that it overwhelms every other instinct she has.
I went through manager so I could get to Director, AVP, VP, C-Suite…
Money, I became a manager to make more money long term.
It can actually be quite rewarding eventually. Being able to put together great teams and enabling them to sovle difficult problems is really nice.
Broadening someone’s skill set and given them stretch assignments and seeing them grow into a really strong employee is pretty amazing.
Being able to protect your team and even increase their raise pool when the organization is cutting back is rewarding.
Identifying equity issues across your team and creatively solving them is quite rewarding.
Management is challenging but it can also be very rewarding.