20 years in, I finally see how I might enjoy being a manager. When I have teammates who can do something that I don't know how to do (like ML research), it seems genuinely worthwhile to spend my time protecting them from bullshit instead of engineering it myself.
@jjwolverine We are eerily synced; I've been thinking the same thing lately. I'm never going to be some kind of world-class engineer at this point, but I'm really good at helping people navigate company politics and their careers, and enjoy pushing back on upper management for the good of my people. Thinking about changing jobs made me realize how little technical transfer of knowledge there'd be for me, but I'd be able to step right in as a technical manager.
@hellamander nice! I still have mixed results with mentorship; sometimes it's very satisfying. But sometimes with junior engineers it's still kinda annoying. Like, "I could have done this faster than I can urge you through it."
Fortunately with these more senior people I'm working with, there's less of the "one inch gopher moats don't stop bears" kind of mentorship XD
@jjwolverine I like building teams of junior devs: I can break their bad habits and teach them my ways much more easily :3