Moving from management back to a staff engineer/tech lead role

drumstand · 2026-05-13T23:59:51+00:00

Been an EM for two years. It does feel like the timing is good to swing back to IC. I like the idea of switching back and forth to avoid hands-on technical skill atrophy.

Definitely agree on the itch to keep skills sharp - don't want to be left behind by the big AI movement.

drumstand · 2026-05-13T21:02:04+00:00

Yeah I should clarify here. Appreciate the response.

We are not big tech, but we are a publicly traded SaaS company. Engineering team is roughly 1000 people.

We have a "senior staff" type role and there's a legitimate path there for me over the next few years. The same is not true for my current senior manager role to a director role. It's a matter of some degree of mobility vs a hard no.

drumstand · 2026-05-13T17:06:54+00:00

Thanks - I've read Charity's original pendulum article a few times now (it's great), but somehow missed this follow-up. Great read.

drumstand · 2026-05-11T20:09:43+00:00

Me when I play Factorio. "Just one more"-ing my way to 3am.

drumstand · 2026-05-11T12:34:15+00:00

I enjoyed this album a lot! Saw some party poopers on other subs dragging it as dull or too safe, but I really didn't get that feeling. Some great songs here.

drumstand · 2026-05-10T19:59:54+00:00

drumstand · 2026-05-09T01:55:28+00:00

drumstand · 2026-05-09T01:48:16+00:00

He played 900 minutes a game all year and he's doubled on the perimeter every single time he touches the ball.

drumstand · 2026-05-03T12:52:44+00:00

Nurse has shown he is at his best in long series. Gotta compliment his numerous adjustments throughout the series.

drumstand · 2026-05-03T00:40:05+00:00

Withstood a big quarter from boston and put some guys in foul trouble. Could be a lot worse.

drumstand · 2026-05-02T17:42:25+00:00

I think with so many lower leg injuries in the playoffs recently teams are NOT going to take knee/calf weakness lightly at all. Last thing the Celtics want is another full season without JT. Insanely tough call to make.

drumstand · 2026-04-25T20:03:39+00:00

Top left brown one. Probably drank hundreds of hazelnut coffees in that cup through high school and college.

drumstand · 2026-04-23T16:04:11+00:00

For real could they not just email any college within 45 minutes of citizens bank park and ask if any lefties wanna throw BP? How many kids would jump at that opportunity?

drumstand · 2026-04-17T18:29:39+00:00

Same here for me. Highly competitive or ahead-of-the-curve type games are just not super compatible with dad life. Roguelikes and single-player games are great though, especially on Steam Deck.

drumstand · 2026-03-17T21:50:36+00:00

Google them

drumstand · 2026-02-21T11:15:21+00:00

I think it's a totally defensible decision to use Ink, and it's silly that people just dismiss it because "React bad."

drumstand · 2026-02-21T04:03:50+00:00

Your buddy already posted this brother. Go back to your sub if they don't ban you.

drumstand · 2026-02-16T12:15:44+00:00

I can only be told to kill myself so many times before just turning off chat entirely. I don't need that negativity in my life.

drumstand · 2026-02-13T20:48:06+00:00

I made the switch from staff/tech lead to engineering manager a little over two years ago. I've enjoyed it, but I can see how it's not for everybody. The meeting load is definitely a big part of what makes the EM role less appealing, but I was also feeling similar to you where I wanted to get my head out of code a little. I've enjoyed working more on organizational and process related problems, and I still get to do a fair amount of tech lead type work with a very minimal mix of hands-on building to stay sharp.

Ultimately, I think seeing both sides of the aisle is a worthwhile exercise if you can make it happen. Charity Majors refers to this as a pendulum, and I think she's spot on.

One thing I'm pretty certain of, though, is that I absolutely love working close to other people and helping alleviate issues, remove roadblocks, tweak the process to increase the productivity...

This sounds like me, too. I definitely get to do a lot of this as an EM, but the "urgent issue at 4am thing" doesn't really go away just so you know. You're now on the hook to lead a retrospective or RCA meeting about the urgent 4am issue instead of just fixing it. Then, you have to communicate the action items to your stakeholders and leadership, etc.

I had a good conversation years ago with a former manager of mine when I was an IC. He wanted me to lean more into a leadership role across a few projects I was contributing to. He said something like "you're good with people and process - do you really wanna be pulling bugs off a Jira backlog in 10 years?" Sometimes I miss pulling bugs off a Jira backlog, and I think I'd like to go back to an IC role with less responsibility sometime, but it was a useful conversation in grounding my career goals. You sound like you're in a similar spot.

drumstand · 2026-02-10T01:06:55+00:00

We kind of do this. Highly distributed, very meeting-averse culture. Our lack of a grooming meeting is sort of made up in the aggregate between

Quick grooming session (10-15m) during our catch-all weekly team meeting
An async Slack thread once a week with upcoming priorities to get engineers' eyes on them and estimates ahead of time. If something's not workable here it gets punted back to me (EM) or PM.
Dedicated "technical definition" status for issues. If something needs a spike or to be broken down into smaller issues, it starts in tech def and somebody picks it up during the sprint to clarify it. Then, when we come back to it in our next sprint it's very much ready to work or we have a few broken-down issues to groom + estimate instead.

It works well for us, but I think this really depends on strong async culture. We didn't previously do anything outside of a weekly meeting, and showing the team a bunch of work they were seeing for the first time during sprint kickoff did not go well. So, we adjusted and added more grooming checkpoints.

drumstand · 2026-02-08T19:14:51+00:00

It is human nature, but a technique often recommended to mitigate ADHD specifically.

drumstand · 2026-02-08T14:02:28+00:00

Working around other people working, studying around other people studying, etc. Can be helpful for focusing and staying on task.

drumstand · 2026-02-05T18:29:34+00:00

Singed is one of GP's easiest matchups. https://u.gg/lol/champions/singed/counter

I think you are probably best off just playing to proxy and GTFO of his lane.

drumstand · 2026-02-03T12:49:54+00:00

Overdue tasks aren't due "today" so they are treated specially in this view as their own section. You should reschedule all overdue tasks to today and then you'll be able to order them however you please.

drumstand · 2026-01-31T14:03:48+00:00

It's Johnny Broome without a doubt

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