Individual Contributor vs Manager
Anonymous User
219

I am a developer with 12+ years exp(mostly startups) who happened to take over and successfully executed engineering manager role in a new technology and did that for the past 2.5 years.
Now, I started looking for a change and am confused on the roles i should apply for.

  1. If i apply for IC, i feel like the last 2.5 years of my work is wasted. I enjoyed leading a team but coding time has significantly reduced and I might have to lot of leetcoding before I apply.
  2. If i apply for a manager role, I feel that maybe i do not have adequate experience to do it. I prefer something which has atleast some percentage of coding. I am afraid i might loose touch in coding.
  3. The other options seems to Architect roles which are limited. But, I am not someone who is good at creating long documents. Few I saw seems to have that as the requirement.

What are my options now? Have I reached a breaking point? Am I left with only FAANG? Did I take a wrong step by taking the manager role?

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