Ask HN: I am tired of being a manager, how to escape this trap? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I am tired of being a manager, how to escape this trap?

3 pointsdanrocks5 comments

I currently work as an M2 (L7) software development manager at a FAANG company. I lead multiple teams (~35 people total) building critical software for the company's infrastructure. Systems that hit millions of transactions per second and have tangible impact in the user experience of millions of customers.

I hate every minute of it.

The long, grueling days sitting in meetings, some of them relevant, but many with just very senior people blabbering and requesting more data and more discussions and more meetings. The inability to do anything technical, being very passionate about system design and coding. The constant complains from my engineers about topics I have no jurisdiction over (TC). I am so tired of it.

I was pushed to management due to being right a few more times than wrong, having good communication skills, and being a kind leader. It's a trap I want to get out of, but I can't figure out how. Fortunately I was still writing code about 3 months ago (different company) so I am still fluent and my skills haven't atrophied. But for 20 years of experience I have, 10+ years in management certainly mean I am not necessarily a "guru" I should be at my age (43). This may signal trouble in the marketplace if I try to find an SDE job.

Another problem is that, with my experience, I may be able only to find a job as an engineer in enterprise software, where engineers don't code. Another trap, judging from how unhappy my engineers are at having to spend their days writing documents for similar meetings to the ones I described above.

I make very high TC (mid-high six figures) but I am willing to give that up for a job where I can just design and write software. I am also ok going down a level or two. I am hell bent on doing it, just need a few ideas of what the next steps could be, anecdotes from people who took the plunge, success/failure stories, all of it. Just shoot it.

I also fully understand that this may be the "grass is greener" effect taking hold, but even if going back to IC is not all that I think it's cut out to be, it will be an improvement to my current professional mental state.

This is pretty easy: go work for a start-up. They'll need someone who has a bit of management experience combined with ability to code and contribute individually. If the startup grows and succeeds you can just keep yourself in more individual contributor positions or even a CTO position where you have a VPE or Director of Eng to do the management.

Unless your real concern here is that you want a nice FAANG salary while also enjoying your work, in which case you should figure out what is really important to you in life.

I'm hard-pressed to understand why someone at your level takes things as they are.

If something's wrong, why not fix it? Wouldn't that be better for you and for people in positions like yours, and everyone around you who is also suffering?

When you get to emotions as strong as "hate" and judgments as wide as "every minute of it", it's likely the proximal problem is you. You're triggered and don't know clearly what bothers you.

Coding and design problems are tractable even when the problem is large. You get used to success. Organizational problems can also be tractable, but often they are not, regardless of scale or complexity. This makes them very, very frustrating, particularly to those used to success.

You might develop better insight using analogies to organic systems. E.g., how to kill something that's growing out of control? (like cancer: poison, burn, cut, or tag). How to mitigate toxicity? (Wall it off.) How to handle complex decisions in urgent situations? (segregate system-1 quick heuristics from system-2 analytics)

Think in organic systems because it is like maintenance programming: you don't have the option to do the right thing (and kill the golden goose); you have to make do. Only the founders get a greenfield experience at building management culture; everyone else through successive generations of the company has to spin straw into gold.

In management you will die if you just reflect and respond to the needs around you, or reinforce or oppose the groupthink. Managing amidst the chaos is the opposite of being the responsive IC delivering value to the customer. You have to go into your own space, get your own zen calm, and discover the one point of leverage you want to attack. Then build defenses for everything else, and attack that point as gently and skillfully as you can, using the suffering of the problem itself as your super-power. If it's really bad, then everyone will embrace your solution.

Have faith.

Managers commonly scape their pain by getting promoted. My last manager became director and loved it. But in his case, he loved directing people.

Tough it out a few years, save your money and once you have enough, look for the job you truly love.

Truth be told, all jobs suck. You just have to pick the positives and go with it.

> just need a few ideas of what the next steps could be

Put your resume online and interview for jobs? If you have actual development experience, this should go rather quickly, tailor your resume to that.

If you're worried about age discrimination, remove all but the last 3 jobs from your resume, remove school graduation dates (or considering removing schools altogether) so you don't look old.

We're in a world-wide economic time of uncertainty. Personally, I would keep my current gig until things normalize somewhat.

I see a fair number of applicants who are current managers who want to be ICs again. As long as they are OK with the pay drop I don't see anything wrong with it and certainly don't treat them any differently in the interview pipeline (other than to tell them I'm an IC who did the same previously).

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