How to go from Dev to PM
blog.geekli.st
blog.geekli.st
Edit: I imagine that's perfectly natural - when I was in backoffice IT I strongly desired to transition into project management so that I could transition into people management so that I could make meaningful decisions and get credit for them. It's probably the same in product companies except low-level devs will want to manage products so they can manage divisions so they can run big-name tech companies. Currently I'm working as a consulting dev in a small dev consultancy and I don't feel the same pull in that direction that I used to. I think maybe all we really need is to be taken seriously and to have some meaningful work.
(in most companies) more money, power, autonomy. Except in very early stage startups, it is the rare developer who has more of any of this than even the lowliest PM. e.g: I think Vic Gundotra makes more money, and has more power at Google than most (all?) engineers there.
I also think that engineers would be paid much better than product managers in such an organization, given the higher demand for engineering skills (there should be more engineers than product managers on any given team) and a smaller pool of potential hires.
The tradeoff is this:
1) PMs get broader visibility across the org, which tends to result in faster promotions into management for "good" PMs.
2) PMs atrophy technical skills and become more dependent on the larger organization (they acquire more firm-specific skills in econ talk) than do equivalent developers.
So, sometimes if you like your company and want to advance quicker, you will be willing to trade away some industry or general skills for firm-specific skills to get faster promotions or more power.
Obviously the day-to-day work of a PM is pretty different from that of a dev and the transition is not something that all devs would like or should even aspire to. For those who want to know more about what PMs are supposed to do (and no, it is not just project management :-) check out my blog on this topic - http://avilay.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/what-does-a-pm-do/
Note that not everyone who has the chops necessarily love programming. Also, as others pointed out, in many companies a PM earns more than any technical person.
Are you really stuck in meetings and infantile email disputes as long as it looks like from a devs POV? This is coming from personal observation of my work environment, not any sort of dig at you.
I've always assumed that a single PM is good, but as soon as you put two together, work grinds to a halt.
note: our PM's make about 30k more than the highest paid dev.
(from dev to PHB)
Advice on how to make sure you become the former and not the later would be more useful than this blog post.
I'm not saying you have to take an MBA, but being able to code and being able to manage people are not the same talent. In many situations, they're quite the opposite.
And you had to show off your coding cred before being hired for it. The same should apply for management.
Have you ever sworn at your computer?
As a result of swearing at your computer did it refuse to work for you the next day?
Have you ever had to bring your computer into an office sit it down and ask it to come in earlier even though you don't really care what time it shows up?
Have you ever had to defend your computer making a typo and costing the company $100,000 to people who are so careless as to ignore the redlines under their misspelled words in the email regarding this issue?
As a manager you are a human shit shield for the people beneath you. In addition to being a human shit shield whenever the budget is cut you must pick who gets a paycheque and who doesn't when the budget is cut. At the end of the day after letting people go, you toss a coin walk into your managers office and then find out if you made the cut.
The only really good thing about being a manager is that when comically stupid decisions get made all you have to do is keep a straight face and delegate actually implementing it to someone instead of having to code the atrocity yourself.
A lot of the replies here seem to be castigating the role of a Project Manager, which is the often technically clueless PHB type responsible for ensuring that a waterfall project is completed by its deadline.