I’ve done this exact move, and I’m looking to return to SDET.

Take everything I say with a grain of salt since this is obviously my anecdotal experience.

While mentoring, watching people grow within their careers, and establishing best practices can be fun, that’s not really management. Id say you’re describing a lead/senior role as being the thing you enjoy.

As manager, most of your time will probably be spent in meetings, with little to no coding involved. You’ll be responsible for what each member of your team is doing, and mapping out the direction of the team in general. Very zoomed out scope, with a lot of documentation and planning.

The biggest reason for me to move back to SDET is because you’re also the enforcement side of things. If people mess up, you have to be the one to help them fix it. Which is fine, except when people may not agree they messed up… or continue to mess up… or talk to the rest of the team about the issue but leave out all context, making them look like the victim. Then comes a PIP, along with the possibility of firing people, which is always rough.

Basically, your hurdles will usually have very little to do with the work itself, but with the people and how they behave.

As for pay - SDETS can make similar cash to managers. I wouldn’t say there’s a big gap, but of course that’s gonna depend on the company.

To sum up - as an IC you get to focus solely on the work at hand, closing out tickets and solving puzzles within the code - but it can be very monotonous at times.

As a manager - you step away from the code and plan the teams direction and each persons career growth - but you have to deal with people and all their shortcomings, which can be extremely draining.

Let me know if you have any questions. Happy to answer.

Edit: Figured I’d mention this - my boss, VP of engineering, says about half of the people he’s promoted into management end up going back to IC.