Get a new job. Join a large multinational company with known reputation for developing management skills. Management skills can be learned, and not all companies are created equal - some value good management, some only focus on short term results.
I did this when I was 4 years into my engineering career. After 20 years I ended up a CTO at a large (~40bn) company. There are good things about it, but I am still the happiest when I have time to code and build stuff. Managing others is nearly entirely about emotional intelligence, empathy, and it's better to be an extrovert as your days will mostly be all meetings. Money is fine, but I am not sure I'd do it again if I were to start from scratch. With all the hindsight I think I'd advise myself to join a startup instead.
In any case, don't neglect the company culture. If you want to learn management, don't do it in places with zero strategy and short term focus - you will only learn to never attempt it again, most likely.
After a handful of years into my dev career, i moved to management, and i have regretted it especially the last few years. I have been in either been a team manager or prod. manager (indiovidual contrib.) role the last 15 or so years...and now wish i could go back to some sort of dev. role...but the concern i have is rusty coding joints (even though i do fun scripting on the side on the weekends) and likely a non-trivial salary cut.
@aenis While i did not reach CTO level at a 40bn company, i did play a similar role once at a small non-profit, and some parts were fulfilling but others were def. not - at lewast for me. However, you said it best when you stated, "I am still the happiest when I have time to code and build stuff". I dislike so many meetings, hate work politics, but the 2 areas where i shine and/or am fulfilled are coaching team members, and building stuff (coding, etc.)! Man, i miss more directly building stuff!
You also might find if you go to a “big tech”
-esque company, the career paths and challenging projects available as an individual contributor might satisfy your desire for growth, without having to go into management. Depends what your motivations are but bigger tech focussed companies will often have parallel IC and manager career paths that are equivalent, so you can become a very senior engineer without transitioning into management.
Comments
Get a new job. Join a large multinational company with known reputation for developing management skills. Management skills can be learned, and not all companies are created equal - some value good management, some only focus on short term results.
I did this when I was 4 years into my engineering career. After 20 years I ended up a CTO at a large (~40bn) company. There are good things about it, but I am still the happiest when I have time to code and build stuff. Managing others is nearly entirely about emotional intelligence, empathy, and it's better to be an extrovert as your days will mostly be all meetings. Money is fine, but I am not sure I'd do it again if I were to start from scratch. With all the hindsight I think I'd advise myself to join a startup instead.
In any case, don't neglect the company culture. If you want to learn management, don't do it in places with zero strategy and short term focus - you will only learn to never attempt it again, most likely.
After a handful of years into my dev career, i moved to management, and i have regretted it especially the last few years. I have been in either been a team manager or prod. manager (indiovidual contrib.) role the last 15 or so years...and now wish i could go back to some sort of dev. role...but the concern i have is rusty coding joints (even though i do fun scripting on the side on the weekends) and likely a non-trivial salary cut.
@aenis While i did not reach CTO level at a 40bn company, i did play a similar role once at a small non-profit, and some parts were fulfilling but others were def. not - at lewast for me. However, you said it best when you stated, "I am still the happiest when I have time to code and build stuff". I dislike so many meetings, hate work politics, but the 2 areas where i shine and/or am fulfilled are coaching team members, and building stuff (coding, etc.)! Man, i miss more directly building stuff!
You also might find if you go to a “big tech” -esque company, the career paths and challenging projects available as an individual contributor might satisfy your desire for growth, without having to go into management. Depends what your motivations are but bigger tech focussed companies will often have parallel IC and manager career paths that are equivalent, so you can become a very senior engineer without transitioning into management.