I did this from a hands-on CTO role at a 20-person startup to a senior engineer at a 200 person e-commerce outfit known nationally in the UK.

I was miserable for a long time, and sat down one day and made a list of all the things I liked about the job and all the things I hated. Everything in the “like” column was dev work. Everything in the “hate” column was the management work. So I slept on it for one night, quit, and went hunting for a dev job - this was 2015 so not too shabby.

There were a lot of things about this move I regret. The pay cut, the fact that my office in London got shut down as a consequence of my quitting meaning nearly everyone was made redundant, the fact that at my new role I was kind of resented a fair bit by other engineers.

But I was a lot happier and settled in my life. And nobody else can do that for me. I had to own the actions to make my short life on this planet better.

I’ve done management work since, and I’m now back to being an IC at a FAANG, but not as a software dev. I am now thinking about getting back into dev but it’ll get harder for me now I’m in my mid-40s.

I say if you aren’t happy, do it, but realise there will be some pain points. Ride that out, keep your head down and stay focused and you could be a lot happier.