I’ve thought it over, and I’ve decided the best next step for me is to shift from a software developer to a management role.
I’ve worked a lot of high stress, fast paced positions, mostly in R&D groups/companies, which I always excelled at. I now understand why I did well in that type of environment (undiagnosed ADHD), and how to be properly organized enough to perform in an SDM role (ADHD meds lol).
Honestly sitting in meetings for 30+ hours a week doesn’t sound so bad anymore. Racing to get a lot of technical work done in a tight timeline now sounds miserable. I’ve had some amazing SDMs, and I’m confident I can be better at it than most I’ve worked under.
So: any and all thoughts, what books or resources would you have recommended to yourself, what companies or roles might be a particularly good fit.
In an allegorical sense, start dressing for the job you want.
Part of that would be getting some project management training, but also start acting like a leader to Junior developers. Instead of just focusing on getting the job done, focus on helping them become better developers. Being in management is partially about being in meetings, but it’s also partially about growing your talent and building relationships with your team and your customers. That’s going to do one of two things, either it’s going to prepare you to move up in the company that you’re in right now or it will give you some ammunition to go for the job that you want in another company.
All that makes sense. Mentoring junior engineers is something I’ve always enjoyed, though I haven’t had as many opportunities as I would like. I should mention that I don’t have a job right now. Laid off from Amazon during their big layoffs earlier this year, though there’s no way I could have been an SDM at Amazon. I would die.
I see SDM as a combination of people management, project management, and tech leadership. The former is something I thought I could never do, but I no longer think that’s true. But I would have to grow into it. The middle I don’t see as an issue, though if you have any particular courses or books on project management I would love to hear them. The third is a nonissue, as I’ve done plenty of tech lead work. My main weakness in that area is delegating, though Amazon did help me a lot with learning how properly define and track work.
I’m still struggling with what type of company makes the most sense. I was leaning towards more specialized SDE roles, but now I’m thinking that doesn’t matter they just need a really good SDE -> SDM pipeline. Probably larger, more established companies? I’m not sure how to break this to 18 year old me, but I’m actually considering one of the gazillion fully remote Microsoft openings.
Gotta admit, young me got a lot wrong about what my future held. I’m glad he was wrong, because life wouldn’t be that great if he was right about everything. :P