Transitioning From Being a Developer to a Manager

I'd initially thought this was written by Andy Bell, head honcho at Piccalilli (where the article is hosted), but it was written by Liam Egan, whose work I wasn't familiar with. His piece on Transitioning From Being a Developer to a Manager would've been incredibly helpful if I'd been able to read it 20 years ago.

Many modern tech organisations now offer a dual-track career path for developers. One path is for management, and the other is the Individual Contributor (IC) path. Think of it as a fundamental shift in your job’s purpose. As a developer, your primary goal is to solve complex problems. As a manager, your primary goal is to build and support a team that solves complex problems.

This is the case in my workplace, where you're able to follow a developer path (Associate thru Senior, Lead, Senior Lead to Architect, and beyond) vs a managerial path (Associate, Senor, Manager, Senior Manager, Director etc.) but it wasn't the case when I was younger.

I just fell into being a people manager. I had no idea how best to do it and made many (so many) mistakes along the way. It was only well into my managerial career that I eventually managed to shift some of the imposter syndrome. It took a while before I felt that I was able to help manage peoples' workloads and, more importantly help manage their careers and lead them in their own chosen direction.

Incidentally, Liam is Director of Technology for We the Collective, and they have a lovely site.