Coding since 12, pretty introverted as a teenager and went the usual compsci route. Spent a lot of my free time hacking on OSS projects.
Then got into engineering management, similar to you I’d o enjoy mentoring and the more strategic aspects of the role.
But I dislike using AI for coding, it really ruined the fun for me. That fun being entirely eroded made it easier to commit to the management path (I did the IC-Management pendulum for some years).
Coding since 12, pretty introverted as a teenager and went the usual compsci route. Spent a lot of my free time hacking on OSS projects.
Then got into engineering management, similar to you I’d o enjoy mentoring and the more strategic aspects of the role.
But I dislike using AI for coding, it really ruined the fun for me. That fun being entirely eroded made it easier to commit to the management path (I did the IC-Management pendulum for some years).