I moved from being a developer for 13 years to being the tech lead and now I've been a tech project manager for the last 18 months or so.
I'm just interested to see if anyone else has gone along a similar path and how they feel about it?
Personally I really miss the hands on approach of being a developer ( I work in the SAP arena). I got a real buzz from delivering new solutions, fixing bugs etc.
I just don't get the same daily buzz from project management. I still enjoy being a pm and find it rewarding, just not as satisfying as dev work. The pm work seems more mundane, more stressful (as you are relying on other people). On the other hand it is slightly better paid (not greatly though as sap developers are well paid too), seems to carry more status and hopefully will give me a longer shelf life in the contractor market. Plus pm contracts tend to run for longer (i.e. the whole life cycle).
It's just day to day I prefered being a developer or even the tech lead as that was a mixture of dev work and management.
I'm just interested to see if anyone else has gone along a similar path and how they feel about it?
Personally I really miss the hands on approach of being a developer ( I work in the SAP arena). I got a real buzz from delivering new solutions, fixing bugs etc.
I just don't get the same daily buzz from project management. I still enjoy being a pm and find it rewarding, just not as satisfying as dev work. The pm work seems more mundane, more stressful (as you are relying on other people). On the other hand it is slightly better paid (not greatly though as sap developers are well paid too), seems to carry more status and hopefully will give me a longer shelf life in the contractor market. Plus pm contracts tend to run for longer (i.e. the whole life cycle).
It's just day to day I prefered being a developer or even the tech lead as that was a mixture of dev work and management.
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