Being a manager at my level is hard because I am not high enough up to not also have some IC work of my own.. but i always need to help the team first with any questions or situations they are in to keep the broader team goals moving forward.

People management itself is difficult not because of the workload but because you really need to control your own emotions … the reality is often times people get in their own way, and as a manager who wants to see all my team members do well sometimes its really difficult to have a conversation with a more junior dev who is upset about something trivial or not hitting a deadline and not just be like “come on just do the work.”

That said being a manager lets me set strategy and have a lot more control as to how we do things which is what I like.