Why I moved from EM/lead to IC role?

This article articulates the reasons that lead me to the decision of transitioning from a managerial to an Individual Contributor(IC)

Preface

In your career as a software engineer, there comes a crossroad where you have to make a choice:

• Move to a Managerial/Tech Lead role(EM)

• Stay as an Individual Contributor(IC)

For me, this choice came in the year 2021. I was working as a senior software engineer in Livspace. My promotion was due and I was asked to lead the team.

My struggle being an Engineering Manager

As mentioned I was promoted as an EM in Mid, 2021. Livspace is a mid-sized tech company. When I was promoted, the IC role was not well defined against an EM role. In most companies, you are given a choice.

Within 6 months of working as an EM, I understood that this role is not meant for me. Let me first define the responsibilities of an EM:

1. Discussions with the Product team to define a Product roadmap for upcoming quarters.

2. Taskforce management - define manpower required to complete the product roadmap. If the manpower required is higher, we recruit more engineers.

3. Create initiatives against the defined roadmaps. We use Jira for task management.

4. Sprint Planning -

   1. Create Epics/tasks

   2. Assign tasks to respective devs.

5. Performance review of developers and appraisal discussions.

6. Engage with developers to improve their efficiency.

Point of Contention

I can discuss my struggle with each mentioned point in length but I will not bore you with details. Instead, let me point to my contentions as an EM.

1. Most of my time was consumed in meetings. I spent almost 60% of my time in meetings. I hate meetings. I used to sleep throughout the meetings.

2. I am interested in technical solutions - architecture, LLD, and coding.

3. I am not interested in bookkeeping - taskforce, roadmap, etc.

4. Sprint planning is still fine - I am fine with creating and assigning tasks considering I am going to lead a few projects.

5. I am absolutely pathetic in people management. I am so straight in my feedback, my subordinates used to get offended.

6. I can mentor people but not lead them. I was afraid I was going to demoralize my team.

Transition to IC role

When I was promoted to an EM, my manager mentioned that any software engineer needs to make the transition to a managerial role at some point in their career. I was also in the same mindset.

However 6 months in the EM role, I realized that I am getting very frustrated being unable to work on things that I love - software engineering.

So, I talked to my manager and our higher management was accommodating enough to let me transition to an IC role almost immediately.

Key Takeaways for the Reader

If you are in the process of transitioning to a senior role - EM or IC, you should really evaluate the point of contentions I mentioned.

Only after carefully evaluating the responsibilities of EM, you should move to the EM role. Otherwise, you are better off as an IC.