Ask HN: Is Project Manager a Step Up from Senior Engineer

I’m a Senior DevOps Engineer at 53, with over 30 years experience. I first became a Senior at the age of 29, with just six years of experience in the field.

I learned long ago that I hate, loathe, and despise doing any kind of management job, and I am horribly bad at doing it when I’m forced into those kinds of roles. That’s why I’m still an Engineer.

I can do the 2nd in command role reasonably well, at least for short periods of time. I like to think I’m pretty good at providing technical leadership on things.

But I find that most people who are good at management tasks, that is something they usually find out fairly early in their lives, and they tend to go down a different path than I have done. I have known some technical people who then later switched over to management and done a good job at that, but they are in the minority. Most of the good managers I’ve known are managers first and techies second.

I see it as a lot like being left or right-handed. Sure, you can use your off hand to do some things, and you might even get pretty good at it. But you’re pretty much guaranteed to always be better at doing those same things with your dominant hand. Unless you’re ambidextrous, of course. Of course, you can always make a point of training your off hand as much as possible, and most of that training will directly transfer without conscious effort to your dominant hand. And it will probably always be a lot of extra work and never feel as natural.

Anyway, this is my truth, as an aging Caucasian overweight computer geek here in Austin, Texas, but I’ve also lived and worked professionally in the Washington, DC region and Brussels, Belgium, and done short six month contracts in places like Denver, Colorado and Cupertino, California.

Among others, I’ve worked for the Defense Information Systems Agency in the Pentagon, AOL during their mid-90s heyday, companies in Europe you’ve never heard of, small consulting companies, and VMWare, and I’ve consulted for companies like AT&T, Apple, and Raytheon, to name a few.

I can’t speak for what your experiences might be in your location.

All of that said, don’t let me discourage you from trying, if that’s what you really want to do. But I would encourage you to do as much research as you can on the exact type of work you would be doing, if you were to switch roles.

Changing career paths is one of the biggest things you can do in your career, and your life. And it can be damn scary. But it can also be very fulfilling, if you make the right switch and at the right time.

Thank you for your advice and taking the time to write this.

I'll definitely think about it.

> I've tried several times to get a leadership position and have either been passed over or shot down as "too technical".

This is probably an obvious question, so I apologize in advance if you've already done this, but have you talked directly to your manager about this? I strongly believe that you don't get what you don't ask for, but sometimes it's hard to actually ask for it in a way that gets your boss on your side. That's the trick, really. You want your boss to be your ally on your career journey, not just an authority figure who hands out job assignments.

One strategy that has worked well for me over the years is to go to a 1:1 with my boss, bring up career progression, and say something along the lines of "In 5 years, I want your job (or $Y job). What do I need to do to get there?"

If you have a good boss, they should be happy to help you and the two of you can come up with a plan with milestones to get you to the role you want. If you want to be a manager, maybe they can let you unofficially manage someone for a few months and then make it more official, starting with just one person and then expanding from there. If you want to be an Architect, then the two of you can define the steps that it would take to convince The Powers That Be that you deserve that. If you want to transition into product management, they can help you with that, too. Your career journey is up to you, not your boss. Ask, and ye shall receive. And if not...

Well... if your boss gives you vague answers and platitudes... you should probably look elsewhere and find someone who does appreciate someone with some ambition. Shitty answer that you probably don't want to hear, but IMO, it's for the best.

On that note, another strategy to get the job you want is to look for a new job. The best way to get a promotion and more money is to transfer companies, versus climbing an internal career ladder. If you're as technical and senior as you imply and live in a place with decent job opportunities, you could almost certainly find an Architect role somewhere that would appreciate your ambition and expertise.

Thank you for your answer. I've raised it with management at my current company, which is a good one, but not a software company and thus limited in growth for technical team members. My current manager was honest in his assesment at least.

In a previous job, they did promise me a management position, there was one I do believe they meant for me but the planned expansion was canceled, and I was passed over for another position which was the reason for me leaving.

I live in a city which is among the best in Latin America but nothing like the U.S., architect positions are very rare and management positions are not usually posted. That's why I'm tempted to take the PM position, as it is for a software outsourcing company. Maybe I can raise my expectations during the interview process.

Gotcha. That's difficult. What I recommend, then, is that you decide what your career goal is and bring that up as a long-term goal. In a lot of interviews, they'll ask you where you see yourself in 5 years, and people give whatever their answer is. I've found that the best thing to do is identify a particular role or person and say "I want that in 5 years." And then make sure that is a possibility (and believe them when they say it is!), and then ask about milestones.

Good luck. :)

No. I wouldn't do it. You can be a project manager right out of school. I was.

I'd recommend pushing for product manager/ product owner position. It's a pretty fluid role and many job reqs want computer science education.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/laynesadler/

I agree with this assessment.

Project Manager, Product Manger / Product Owner, and Program Manager are all different roles. They are related and often confused. I would definitely not trade Sr Dev for PjM.

A more interesting question is why you're considering this change. Do you want to work more with technical leadership? Tech Lead / Architect is the correct role. Do you want more exposure to the business side (sales, costs, profits, etc)? Then you want a Product role. Do you love people and enjoy helping them grow? Engineering Manager is a good spot. Scared of age discrimination? Become an expert on some really difficult technology that's key to your company's business.

I'm not sure how things work in your particular country / company, but here in the US I've never seen a Project Manager --> Engineering Manager transition, since EngMgr is typically expected to be highly technical and still occasionally checking in code.

Additional: The statement that you're "too technical" to be a manager communicates two things to me: (1) They don't believe you have the appropriate interpersonal and leadership skills to execute well in this role. (2) You are valuable in your current chair and they don't want to be bothered with replacing you. Regardless of where you work, I'd recommend working on both of these problems. A great way to do this is to start training other more junior people to take over your job and responsibilities. This demonstrates that you can mentor others, invest in people, and also provides a back-fill when you vacate your position.

Thank you. I agree with your assesment on the "too technical" message.

I'll think about your post.

Thank you for your answer. It's hard to get one here in Uruguay, but I'll definitely look for those.

I tried to get into management because I was afraid of ageism and no-career-path in development, but I quickly learned that I actually love building things. So now I’m just sticking to being a developer and I’ll see where that goes.

It does seem like there are a lot, and I mean a lot, of people who are capable of being managers/project managers/business consultants while actual developers are rather rare. And once you stop caring about the corporate game, it becomes really easy to sit back and let those types squabble aboout for influence while you just build whatever is decided on.