I can tell you from experience that you are going to suck at both.
As a code contributor, you’re not going to be able to keep your commitments because of management responsibility and as a manager you’re not going to have time to do either career development for your team or be in the room to play politics for your team.
The only time that I’ve seen that work is when my former CTO would do non production code as a research product or a proof of concept that he would give to someone else to make production ready.
Also, the people you report to aren’t going to be as willing to give you honest feedback.
As an IC, I can give a suggestion to my team and I have to convince them based on my ideas. They will free to push back. As a manager, many won’t.
I work with a lot of people who for whatever reason won’t say anything openly when they feel something is wrong. Even when it’s not their manager - ie a project manager.
I’ve never been afraid to voice my opinion and “disagree and commit” (how do you say where you work without saying where you work). But then again I’m older (49), more financially secure and not here on H1B [1].
[1] That last statement is not meant to rail against H1B visa holders. I think the entire H1B visa system sucks and is inhumane for the people who have to deal with it precisely because they have to deal with shit that they shouldn’t have to.
As a code contributor, you’re not going to be able to keep your commitments because of management responsibility and as a manager you’re not going to have time to do either career development for your team or be in the room to play politics for your team.
The only time that I’ve seen that work is when my former CTO would do non production code as a research product or a proof of concept that he would give to someone else to make production ready.
Also, the people you report to aren’t going to be as willing to give you honest feedback.
As an IC, I can give a suggestion to my team and I have to convince them based on my ideas. They will free to push back. As a manager, many won’t.
I work with a lot of people who for whatever reason won’t say anything openly when they feel something is wrong. Even when it’s not their manager - ie a project manager.
I’ve never been afraid to voice my opinion and “disagree and commit” (how do you say where you work without saying where you work). But then again I’m older (49), more financially secure and not here on H1B [1].
[1] That last statement is not meant to rail against H1B visa holders. I think the entire H1B visa system sucks and is inhumane for the people who have to deal with it precisely because they have to deal with shit that they shouldn’t have to.