The best managers of my career have all been developers, and like myself enjoy going up and down the management chain based on the need of the org. My favourite, at age 61 joined a ~250 person company as CTO, but spent his initial, transitional period of 90 days, as a part developer, part meeting listener, quietly learning as one would expect, helping them scale to 800+ people.
He's the example to me, of the career I'm intentionally pursuing. There's tremendous amounts to learn from, and contribute to, everywhere. Sometimes an organization and I best work together with me managing, other times with fingers on the keyboard. Sometimes, there are multiple jobs.
We could recognize that we're in a different era, or at least that's my bias. Roles are increasingly combinations of generalists, especially in the AI era.
He's the example to me, of the career I'm intentionally pursuing. There's tremendous amounts to learn from, and contribute to, everywhere. Sometimes an organization and I best work together with me managing, other times with fingers on the keyboard. Sometimes, there are multiple jobs.
We could recognize that we're in a different era, or at least that's my bias. Roles are increasingly combinations of generalists, especially in the AI era.