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Just wondering, is job hopping as engineering manager as easy as coder/individual contributor?

It seems like the market for people with focus on soft skills is way more saturated (we get many more applications for project management roles than for software developers for example).

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Project managers != engineering managers.

Project management is a pretty saturated field, you are correct. Engineering team management is considerably less saturated and EMs are just as in-demand as ICs.

However, much of the value of a good EM is derived as someone who builds and grows a team over a long period of time, so you don't see nearly as much short-term job hopping as you do with ICs.

+1 Author here: the other thing is (at least for me) that it becomes really hard to leave my team after a while because they just grow on me. I feel responsible for their wellbeing and want to make sure they are set up for success. When I was an IC it was much easier (in my head).

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