Ask HN: Is Engineering Management a good career choice?

I've been in an engineering management role for 6 months at a large non-tech company in the financial sector. They've existed for decades and have realized that tech is key to their business. I, along with other EM's from the tech industry, where hired for some organizational transformation.

This is actually my first management role (although I have had direct reports before).

I've actually really enjoyed the role so far, because I've been getting to live The Phoenix Project (DevOps Handbook, Accelerate, and Manager Tools as well):

- We're moving from large risky deploys to small frequent deploys (we're currently in transition)

- Tests are now important, whereas before they were considered tech-debt and would get written after a release

- We're moving from a command-and-control styled leadership where all decisions have to go "up the chain", to a team-empowered structure

- One-on-ones are now important. Whereas before folks would have 20+ direct reports and one-on-ones with their boss was a thing that happened once a month if you were lucky (they were scheduled bi-weekly, but would often get cancelled due to meeting conflicts)

- Moving from waterfall driven projects to "product" based thinking...using SCRUM/Agile in some places, and Kanban in others

- Etc.

That being said, I'm having trouble justifying my position/role/. My salary is higher than most of the developers & I have a lot more authority. A lot of my job is listening to devs and approving their ideas...and justifying things to leadership. Expectation management is a huge part of my job. And a lot of admin stuff. But I like it! I enjoy the role a LOT.

Is this kind of thing good for my career? I really enjoy it, but it's tough because my focus is on the people-system and not on the products we're actually delivering, so it's hard to see where my value comes in. I wonder if I could be automated...and maybe I should go back to a senior dev role :)