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Comment by jghn | Hacker News Reader

> A manager path is just a chiller life.

As someone who has done both multiple times each, this statement comes off as someone who hasn't spent time in management. My stress levels are always much lower when I'm an IC. Even when I'm a high level IC. My blood pressure levels drop when I'm an IC. etc etc etc.

This is not to say that everything about being a manager is harder than being an IC. Not at all. But they're just not directly comparable the way you're doing here. They require completely different skillsets, and come with different challenges. For me, it turns out that the hard parts of manager life stress me out, big time. Thus I prefer IC work.

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I'm in the process of transitioning back to an IC role from a management position and that was one of the biggest factors. As a manager, the level of stress I felt just became unbearable. I'm wrapping up my management responsibilities right now but just knowing that I'll be back to IC work soon and won't have that management stress has had a huge positive impact on my daily life.

I am 2 weeks back as an IC after 3 years of management, so I went through the same thing. Take it slowly, youll have some management instincts that are hard to kick. I am really enjoying logging off and being uncontactable at the end of the day.

That's super helpful to hear. I'm also making the move after 3 years in management.

Being able to be done at the end of the day is something I'm really looking forward to but it's going to take some time to get back into that mindset.

As a manager, I felt like I was always on.

Exactly this. OP probably has not seen the grind of middle management and the stress that comes with it. They don’t call it manager-IC pendulum for nothing.

At my job, I was always on as a senior engineer. Management pushed all the delivery responsibility down to engineers. As a result, I was responsible for all engineers feeling good, divvying the work, ensuring project moved ahead, removing x-team roadblocks, stand-ups, jira tickets etc.

All manager did was collect status reports, weekly meetings, promo and optics documents and managing upwards. He even fired people that made him look bad.

At some point, I started asking, why am I doing all the scoping, project management, product management, people management and sprint running? What exactly is my manager doing to move the product/service ahead?

It looks like you're doing his work. You may try to undercut him by connecting with his managers, get his job, or get fired if he sees your plan. You may try to make it clear to him you understand this arrangement and you're fine with it, but you need more money to make your responsibility tolerable, and he will comply as you let him collect his paycheck for free. Or you might be missing something important and bringing this up will get you fired.

I was about to write something similar. The TLDR that I tell people is computers do exactly what I tell them, people not so much.

In IC work there's often a 'right' answer. At least an answer that can be tested and pass some sort of test. Management is murky, "will this deal work out?", "why are employee A and B constantly fighting?", "partner is asking when X will be done, that I'm only tangentially in control of" ugh, the list goes on.

I think this is just differences in what people are naturally good at. Those naturally better at coding think IC is easier. Those naturally better at politics think being a manager is easier. IMHO manager has a lower minimum level of effort required. If things are running smoothly it's not a lot of hassle or time. The catch is that, at least at the EM & Director level, you have little control over whether or not things run smoothly. And if things aren't running smoothly you catch a lot of crap.

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