17/1 reasons not to be a manager

Years ago a had a 1o1 with one of the most brilliant developers I meet. As a response to my question “What are your plans for three years from now”, she answered that she wants to become a team lead. “No, you don’t”, I answered immediately, explaining here that she enjoys too much to write code, and gain so much pleasure with learning new tech. Gently reminding here shat she hates bureaucracy, daydream at meetings, and not so good with emotions. Years passed, and now she is very successful as a key speaker of one of the FED frameworks. More than once she reminded me how far I have seen.

But I didn’t. I just spoke out of my frustration, mirroring her the things I miss.

Last week I came up across MIPSYTIPSY post, listening 17 reasons why not to be a manager:

• YOU LOVE WHAT YOU DO.
• IT IS EASY TO GET A NEW ENGINEERING JOB.  REALLY, REALLY EASY.
• THERE ARE FEWER MANAGEMENT JOBS.
• MANAGER JOBS ARE THE FIRST TO GET CUT.
• MANAGERS CAN’T REALLY JOB HOP.
• ENGINEERS CAN BE LITTLE SHITS.
• AS A MANAGER, YOU WILL NEED TO HAVE SOME HARD CONVERSATIONS.  REALLY, REALLY HARD ONES.
• A MANAGER’S TOOLSET IS SMALLER THAN YOU THINK.
• YOU WILL GET NONE OF THE CREDIT, AND ALL OF THE BLAME.
• USE YOUR POSITION AS AN IC TO BRING BALANCE TO THE FORCE.
• MANAGEMENT IS JUST A COLLECTION OF SKILLS, AND YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO ALL THE FUN ONES AS AN IC.
• JOY IS MUCH HARDER TO COME BY.
• IT WILL TAKE UP EMOTIONAL SPACE AT THE EXPENSE OF YOUR PERSONAL LIFE.
• YOUR TIME DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU.
• MEETINGS
• IF TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP IS WHAT YOUR HEART LOVES MOST, YOU SHOULD NOT BE A MANAGER.
• IT WILL ALWAYS BE THERE FOR YOU LATER.

I can relate to many of the issues listed and even pick some of my own. But yesterday my team had completed a huge milestone. something I dreamt for a long time. I didn’t develop it. For that, I needed a team of hungry and ambitious developers. A bunch of IC’s that each and every one of them is better than me, but still are willing to listen to my vision, rewrite, refactor, reargue, and rethink every step.

One of the manager blogs I saw is named “Software is Easy, People are Hard”. May I disagree: software is deterministic, people are fascinating. Looking back as my career, the best places I been were places that pushed each team member forward in his own path, according to his skills, capabilities, and rhythm.

Seeing each IC progress and achievements, seeing how the team is much much more than the capability of each multiplied by team size, is the one big reason that outweighs all the seventeen.