Ask HN: Have you made a career move “down” on purpose, and how has it been?

> I also have a strong instinct against doing this, because it feels like self sabotage

With this framing, it can turn your life into a disaster.

Up to that point, I was nodding to every sentence you wrote. But not to this, no. When I demoted myself in my time, which ended very well, I had a different framing (or, a different gut feeling). My instinct was that I'm selling my well-being for much much too low a price and that, this time, there is a greener pasture.

I was noticing the money flow and how I was enabling a business owner, a very concrete physical person, to profit immensely. You can call it envy, I'd say I've learned that I can enter and leave any business transaction as I please.

The career path is just smoke and mirrors.

The ownership shenanigans is just smoke and mirrors. It doesn't matter that the ownership is split into million shares, because in the end of the chain the wealth (from many companies) does converge to an individual. Look through these schemes. As a thought experiment, think about that individual on a hard day, imagine how you've just made "him" 2 million with your sacrifice and you will get 20 grand bonus.

I'm not saying to go to the streets and loot the businesses, I'm saying you need to see your transaction and your options clearly, without distractions. Talk to your family in this framing as well.

> When I demoted myself in my time, which ended very well, I had a different framing (or, a different gut feeling). My instinct was that I'm selling my well-being for much much too low a price and that, this time, there is a greener pasture.

My thoughts exactly. Management or enterprise architecture seems so much more stressful and uncomfortable than coding that I would consider doing it for at least 70% raise (and probably would require closer over 100% to really pull the trigger). Whereas, in practice it pays maybe 30% more than coding and, in many companies here in Europe, actually less than coding (managers are perms with meager salaries, coders are contractors with fat daily rates).

The problem with this thinking is that an effective engineer in a profitable company is going to make someone alot of money.

If you want to capture that money for yourself you can, but it will be a very hard slog.

Making a lot of money for someone else is not the problem. The problem is confusion about some of the aspects of being-a-miserable-manager or being-an-effective-engineer. Not seeing clearly your entire cost/benefit and employer's entire cost/benefit.

If humans actually knew how to measure the value-added by any particular engineer or manager with high certainty then I'm pretty sure that tech corporations would be operated much differently.

As someone who never prioritized money but instead gravitated to mission and a career supporting my family life, my biggest recommendation is to keep earning the high salary as long as you can. Money represents options and time in a storable, transportable form — I didn’t realize that when I was younger and just figured I could live within my means. I make more than 5x my parents did in my rural town, but in an urban city it’s a different calculus for a family and I wish I built up enough money to exercise different options in life.

Further, as you get older, becoming an IC has ageism risks, and returning to age appropriate leadership roles maybe hard with the “drop” on your resume.

> age appropriate leadership roles

This fallacy is so common, but so obviously illogical. By definition, "leadership" roles require a larger number of "followers". Corporate structures are inevitably pyramid shaped, with a tiny number of executives at the top and then more middle managers below and still more ICs at the base.

But unless you're in a country with exponential population growth happening, that structure clearly doesn't represent the populace. There are going to be way more older workers than there are spots at the top of the pyramid.

As a society, we really need to embrace reality and stop pretending like the 5% of people in the upper ranks succeeded and the other 95% of people failed, if they don't rise to the top and then stay there for the rest of their career.

I don’t make the rules, I just know that when people are older it’s more acceptable to be in management or leadership.

One other thing in tech, I feel like there is a feeling that if you don’t have FU money by 40, and are still working in the coding weeds, you actually aren’t any good and are vulnerable when layoffs etc come around.

Start living on the smaller salary now - see how it feels to cut the luxuries, squirrel away the rest into savings.

I’ve been to a colleague’s ‘demotion party’ from team lead to IC in another office - they had no regrets.

Be prepared for employers to be nervous about employing you - some will be worried about you being too big a flight risk because you might still have an open door to senior PM roles. So plan to manage that fear on their side.

Yes, I have. I've talked about it here [0] and here [1] . The difference being that it was a complete career change. Pay went down about $12K which was considerable for a family of 4. In the end it was worth it and I'd do it again.

If you are not happy then I think it is worth moving "down". Worrying about financial safety is important but what about your mental health?

My vote is to seriously consider the move and try to figure out a way to make it work moving "down".

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33126861

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30204355

I did, and I hated it. As it turns out, what I really loved about the "higher" level was the scope and impact of my work, and the more strategic view of things. In my case, moving "down" also meant a huge (like 200-300%) increase in pay. I lasted 3 years in the higher-paying, yet "lower" role. I recently moved back to a "higher" role and am substantially happier.

I've been moving from working 100% to 80% to 60% while still making enough money to provide for a family and to squirrel away a decent portion of my salary.

I could have continued working at 100%... but what for? I realized I don't need status symbols like expensive clothes or a sports car with vanity plates, and my kids will get their smartphones second-hand, just as I do. We're now living in the countryside with decently sized garden and some animals around the house.

I've escaped the treadmill and it was the best decision of my life.

I have done something similar recently. I was tech lead (and soon to be promoted to staff engineer) earning X and with tons of responsibility. I quit and got a job for a senior engineer position earning 25% more. Less responsibility. Now I will wait for 1 year or so to get salary raise, another year to get promoted to staff (with corresponding salary raise). Basically, I'm earning more doing less.

I did, and it was shortsighted for my retirement savings and investments. While I was able to adjust, my lifestyle and expense is downward, you really just can’t scale down 401(k) contributions.

My advice: don’t do it. Look around while you have a job, but stay fully committed to your duties at work (stealing from your employers is still stealing and is wrong).

If you need to, take some vto to clear your mind and relax.

Never "down" from last job, but interviewed with 3 companies, got 3 offers, and after a lot of thought, picked the worst salary out of 3, still it was a little better than what I was doing before. Chose shorter commute, and many small things that I preferred, more "humane" management, etc.

I was on parental leave when interviewing, and of course me becoming a dad made me pick this one over the other ones where I'd prolly have stressed a lot, worked extra for bonuses that don't exist where I ended up, etc.

I don't regret it, except when it's time to negociate a raise and I think about the amount I could be earning. Doesn't last long, I can still switch later if I really need the money, I'm still receiving very positive mails from those I declined, they're actively looking for new hires even recently.

I was a communications executive and had been for more than a decade. But I always had a passion for engineering and built many side projects. I decided to pursue that passion and became an entry-level engineer. I was fortunate to have my company’s (and my wife’s) support. I went from managing a team of about 20 to being part of a small R&D team of about 6. It was the right change for where I’m at in life now despite a substantial cut in compensation.

I don't and will never have a family so it changes the calculus significantly, but I walked away from a political communications job to be a bra fitter/do IT for a small business. How I feel about it changes on a daily basis: The financial stress sucks but at the same time it's so nice to leave work at work and to have mental energy to work on my own projects/hobbies/have a life of my own again. It's not viable long term, but a job that I can roll in and give 20 percent at means I could work on my mental and physical health instead of work eating my life.

If you already own your own house outright and are not faced with financial pressure in that department, a relatively minor step back in salary to maximize your mental-health and life enjoyment seems perfectly reasonable and logical. It's not like a software engineer (who already owns their own home by the way) is going to end up begging in the streets.

Just be advised that a software engineer's job isn't stress free either. Big projects can wreck you both mentally and physically. In some ways, being a PM is a lot easier.

> I look at some of my lower level engineering peers that are "stuck" in their careers (5+ years at the same level, no management responsibility), and honestly I feel like they have a pretty blissful life. Maybe I'm idealizing, but I feel like they can just think about how to build something, get it built, and move to the next thing. Not have to deal with recruitment, management, strategy, etc. Show up and fix the bugs.

Before you do anything, talk to these engineers at length and in depth to confirm whether your assumptions are true. They might not "just think about how to build something, get it built, and move to the next thing".

When I applied for an internal transfer from a senior non-technical role where I was unhappy to a less-senior technical role I had some prior experience with, I talked to members of the team I'd be joining to get a better idea of how they felt on the team and not just the work they had to do. The team I was on was broadly unhappy, which was driving my desire to move, and I wanted to join a team that had at least some camaraderie in the face of the work they had to do.

It would've been easy to assume that was the case, and talking to the team members confirmed it. It also gave me insight into the kinds of gaps and problems they did have that prevented them from doing the kind work I wanted to do with them, and where I could fit in to help solve those problems. It helped justify the move for myself, for the company, and for both the team I was joining and the team I was leaving.

About 7 years ago I got fed up with the company (not the team I was leading) and moved to another company in an IC role. I enjoyed it for a few months and soon realized how much less influence I had as an IC. So I regretted the move. For me there was a ton of value in being able to direct, empower, and encourage the team; allow them to work without distraction; and be part of leadership meetings where bigger decisions were made. I am trying to get back into that kind of role now.

I agree with all the cautionary advice already offered.

Here's my Yes, And...

> ...a move back and down from senior strategy and product work back to engineering IC work

The single best political advice I've ever gotten:

"Make them ask you three times."

(aka Play hard to get, Make them think it's their idea.)

Assuming you intend to stay with the same employer...

If there's an IC role that you desire, do all the things to reposition yourself for that role. So that it's obvious to everyone you're the best person.

When your Boss (or higher) says, "Hey @throw_booored, what do you think of this exciting opportunity building the next generation Acme Wonder Widget?"

"Hmmm, gee Boss, that sure does look cool. I'd love to work on that! Alas, I really love my job. I'm doing important work, with great people, having an impact. And we're so busy hitting some important deadlines. I couldn't possibly abandon them at a time like this. I'm sure you'll find someone..."

Back and forth. Never dismiss the offer. Just demure. Always sound enthusiastic about the idea, grateful for the consideration, and oh so regretful you couldn't possibly take that role at this time.

Around the third time, you say something like "Wow. You've really planted a seed. I can't stop thinking about this. I'd like to say yes. What would a transition look like? Compensation? Responsibilities?" Etc, etc.

I'm curious - what's the benefit in this example over accepting it on the first interaction, if that's what you desire?

Sure. So long as everyone understands you're doing the Boss a solid.

Made a pretty big "down" move myself, except in my case I ended up changing careers.

1. I think the biggest challenge in making these decisions is the fear of making the "wrong" move and the fear of "regret". The reality is that there is no one right answer - regardless of what path you take, regret is baked in and guaranteed. The alternate path/s and its possibilities will always go unexplored/unknown. The question is which one are you ok with the consequences, both upside and downside. Which one are you going to regret more in terms of not taking action?

2. You are onto something in terms of money. We forget but it's only one form of exchange albeit one that we easily understand and that's why it dominates our thinking. But there are others not so obvious ones like time, energy, and identity which are of a higher order but don't get as much airtime. Obviously, you can't make decisions in a vacuum given others are dependent on you.

I've written about my experience that might help.

A collection of frameworks to think it through: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/essential-career-change-frame...

Some questions and the framework around money: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/questions-midlife-career-chan...

More questions around mid career dynamics: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/mid-career-mistakes/

I've gone from management to individual contributor and back to management, mostly because I hated the culture where I was a manager and landed somewhere where its really good so its not a slog.

My advice would be to think of the reasons why you wanted to move up from SWE into various roles leading to the Senior PM role you have now. Were you interested in those roles to be someone in the room making decisions, thinking you would do a better job than others? Maybe you were attracted to the strategy aspects? Maybe it was coaching people and see them grow? Maybe it was 100% pure cash grab?

Blissfully building something and moving to the next thing is idealizing a software engineer's day to day. There is tech debt and the struggle of trying to convince people in your current role the importance, legacy code, legacy frameworks/methodologies, constantly having to learn the new shiny thing to stay relevant, dealing with many different engineer personalities, constantly being asked to deliver stuff in what is perceived as limited timeline, etc.

I haven’t moved down, but boy do I miss working in retail. No stress. My evenings are my own. If my boss sucks, I can quit and go across the street for a new job. Part time is an option. Lots of fun people. Work with my hands. Some minor exercise. Not sitting all day getting rsi inevitably one day

Doesn’t pay enough to retire though. Can’t even afford the dentist on that income

I also miss some aspects of retail. Life was easy when all I had to do was show up and stock the shelves. Co-workers were a lot easier to talk to and make friends with. I actually had pretty good insurance for about $20 a week too (this was 15+ years ago).

I quit by SWE job last year to take care of my kids and I'm happier as a result.

If I were to return to the work force, I would prioritize enjoying the job: friendly teammates, no/short commute, interesting problems to solve, no ethical dilemmas about how my work would be used.

Life is short and I doubt in my deathbed I will be thinking about all the money I didn't make.

I was a backend software engineer and I became a teacher 10 years ago. Don't know if that counts as a down though :-) I am very happy and there is no stress in my life anymore.

My neighboor did this too and I can see myself following the same path later in life, this seems like a nice thing to do. Salary would probably take a dip (depends on where I'd teach), and I'd have to calculate first if I can afford it with mortgage and stuff.

Senior PM, are you project manager or product manager? Either way, those roles are considered individual contributors role and pay scale is also pretty similar to dev salaries. However, these roles do provide easier transition to true management roles.

At my previous mega company, it was pretty common for people to move up and down the corporate ladder. My company encouraged it and it never affected anyone negatively.

I personally went to from team lead to senior dev role. Team lead is also considered IC/manager-in-training role. I was getting overwhelmed with meetings and losing my programming skills. So far I am really enjoying the new "lower" role, and plan on staying at this level for foreseeable future.

I haven't moved up in about 8 years as a midlevel. It is far from blissful. There's tons of pressure to do better no matter what. And of course no real reward compared to the people making 150% what I do because they play the politics.

i did this once and it literally almost killed me from the added stress of the lower-level job. i think it just so happened that the 'easy' job i took was insane stressful, but my general experience is that lower-level grunt jobs have always been more stressful to me in the 'bad' ways, tho i didn't realize it at the time i took the lower-level job.

good stress / good for you ('having' to make decisions, being responsible for things, etc.) vs. bad stress / bad for you (getting told what to do, etc.).

getting back to being a manager-type again was a thing - i guess it added a small hurdle - but was not a big deal on the whole.

one data point.

Quit my job in March of 2021 and went to do a three month stint as a Trail/Restoration crew member.

Best work experience of my life and I don’t care that it wasn’t the next rung on my corporate ladder.

Not having my own family allowed me to make that decision though.

> recruitment, management, strategy, etc

This is all objectively easier and less skillful than your co-workers work. For example, if you recruit wrong.. the company will just fire all those people (as demonstrated by X number of companies in recent months). There will likely be no short term or long term repercussion for you unless you're one of the people fired.

For strategy, if you strategize wrong it is probably contained within a product or section of the company. I doubt you could tank the whole big tech company you work for. You'll just move on to a different project.

Sounds like you're making big money to show up to meetings.

It’s not “objectively” anything of the sort and this comes across as fairly rude and dismissive.

In the last 5 years I've moved from Data Science Manager to Principal (IC role, but basically the external facing technical lead of the team) and now Senior. When I add up all the positives and negatives at work and at home, I think I'm the most content I've been in a long time.

One piece of advice I can give is to make a list of concrete things that are making you think about becoming an IC. And by concrete I don't mean just a word like "Stress." List out the things that are causing that (e.g. Unpredictable rushed deadlines). If it's useful, create a mental Venn diagram of what overlaps and pull out some larger themes. From the list, pick the top 2 - 3 and ask yourself if you are really going to get that as an IC.

Example: For me, one thing that was causing me an immense amount of stress was a highly unpredictable schedule - last minute meetings, fires, people with no ability to prioritize, etc. At the top of my list was being able control my schedule to a reasonable degree. IME that's really hard to do as a Manager or even a Lead/Principal, so it made sense to me to move down to Senior and find a job that allowed for that.

That being said, there are plenty of IC jobs where you sit in pointless meetings all day and get called into meetings at the last minute. It's not like moving down is a guarantee of anything, so it's important to really identify if moving down is going to get you what want. HN has plenty of anecdotes of crappy IC jobs.

As far as pay, I took a small haircut from Manager -> Principal and then a slightly bigger haircut from Principal -> Senior. My spouse works so we still have more than enough to pay bills, meet retirement goals, and have something left over for other stuff. I'm not paid even close to what FAANG people are making, but I suspect lots of people I work with on the business side of things would love to be in my salary band.

I did this for a career change, and it was worth it, but the adjustment period was extremely long (4-6x).

Financially it was okay (still painful; 20% cut + move to vhcol area), but I underestimated how much it would grate to _not matter_. I had grown accustomed to a certain level of deference and respect that was not available in the new role, and in fact my willingness to move "down" was viewed with some suspicion.

People will (almost) always assume you "couldn't cut it" in the old role (or had a mental health crisis or something), and higher-ranked people in the new job will rightly look at you as a potential threat from below.

Good luck. Moving back to IC can be good for some people, but I agree with the other poster that "self sabotage" is a phrase that suggests this may not be right for you.

Yes. Went from Senior leadership back to IC. Life is so much easier for me. I'm doing more coding, solving harder problems and less "people management".

But the company is also a big factor. Previous job was a rotating door. New job has a solid culture.

Product management isn't an upgrade from software engineering. You thought it was until you experienced it yourself. That was your downgrade. I went through that experience and realized PM is a necessary yet insufficient role for someone who has built, and enjoys building software. However, not all software is valued the same. Greenfield work is so much fun, creating something from first principles and intuition, blazing trails and risking failure to acquire insights. Why not dedicate yourself to innovative greenfield project work and keep the PM gig until your project can become a viable product?

The grass is always greener, etc.

It might be better to spend some free time cultivating a side project or two where you can exercise your dev skills without endangering your income. Who knows, it might take off and turn into your own company down the road.

Once you give up salary and seniority, though, those are gone with the odds stacked against getting them back.

And there is the cynical (but non-zero) chance that many people will assume you were demoted for poor performance / behavioral issues / insert your own negative perception, instead of a voluntary move.

Tread cautiously, I'd say, don't do aything to endanger your current position and income.

It's a matter of perspective. I have 20 yoe, looking at titles alone, all of my job switches in the past 10+ years have been "steps down": director to manager, senior manager to manager, manager to consultant. The first two, however, resulted in greater compensation, not less (lifestyle business to startup to FAANG). The last one was a move towards work-life balance and flexibility. Overall, no regrets about my choices. It's a funky career path, but I'm happy where I ended up.

I took a lower salary and title for the chance to work at a small company with a great culture I admired that couldn't afford more, having been exhausted of working for big corporations where there was a lot of bureaucracy.

They almost immediately got acquired and it turned into the same old big company bureaucracy over again. My tradeoff was in vain.

If I had to do it again, I still don't know if I'd do it differently though. You really never know how things are going to turn out. Every choice is a risk either way.

It's not up/down. It's career track. You ended up in the management track. You want to be in the technical track.

It's difficult to make as much money in other tracks, so you need to decide what your risk tolerance is.

But keep in mind that you're looking the grass on the other side and thinking it's greener. People in the technical track have the frustration of having many technical decisions made for them by the "idiots" in the management track.

Pick your poison.

Left a career-track government job in my mid-20s and took a decent pay-cut to take a senior role at a nonprofit I was fascinated with. Did that for about three years before my wife and I decided we could use some more cash and now I'm back in a manual labor role (that's a technical writer joke) for a gov. contractor. Glad I did the nonprofit management thing while I could, but happy to knuckle down and write for a while.

> I look at some of my lower level engineering peers that are "stuck" in their careers (5+ years at the same level, no management responsibility), and honestly I feel like they have a pretty blissful life.

I moved from Engineering Manager "down" to Senior Engineer 15 months ago. I had pretty much the same perception as this.

I still do. My life is blissful now. Go for it!

> I worry about having regrets and endangering my family's financial safety.

The tipping point— when you no longer worry about things like finances, career track, opinions of others.

Either because you resolved those issues in your mind, or uncontrollable events have made your corporate position redundant.

Always a smart play to have a solid “Plan B” at the ready.

Great, I took a bit of a pay cut and went from senior manager with 50 reports to being a IC/manager mix in a very small team. I joined a much better team with great culture, a great product and real momentum. It was the right choice.

Project Management looks to me the most stressful job there is. Specially in the consulting business working eith multiple customers. If I were in this position I would take a paycut and get back to software engineering.

I quit a $2m job to dick around with board games

You can do this, as long as you can commit to a score of 60 every time, below which you will be eliminated

Down in seniority? Or down in pay? Big difference.