
Ask HN: Swithing from tech position to business one - selmat
Hey there,<p>I am wondering what are your experiences with switching your career from &quot;doing&quot; position like engineer, developer,designer,whatever where you doing the job... to the upper position where you are managing, leading directing like manager,C*O position,business developer etc where its more about softskills,presentation and you are representative of business.<p>I would like to know where are you more satisfied with job as itself,workload,isues your are solving,sallary etc.<p>My humble experience is...i have tried to change position to PM (project mannagemet) in IT area, but PM positions in corporates in my country are about resending email and chasing people. In SME is more interesting but financial evaluation is very bad. Poor base salary with better (not awsome) yearly bonus which vary on company results lied on your shoulders. Other story are your possible coworkers. As nontechnical man you aren&#x27;t forced to be up-to-date with last technological updates at so deep level.<p>I am also trying to do my own business but its quiet hard find similar people with same attitude to build thing together,another point is doing technical and business staff in one person is difficult at least from beggining.<p>I don&#x27;t wanna move to different area since i moved 6 times during 9 years,mainly due to job.
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jcfausto
For me something similar occurred. I have worked in a managerial position for
3 years and I really enjoyed but after sometime, if you passion is really to
build things, you tend to be a little bit bored and stressed in dealing with
people that sometimes don't want to be helped. Is kind of a case where beyond
being a manager, you need to be a psychologist. This sometimes sucks, and in
this moments you miss the days where you are a developer or engineer and only
need to do your best to be updated with technology and create the best code
that you can.

So, I think that this is very personal and don't have i recipe to be followed.
Each one could discover your way and passion even you don't reach some cool
title like C*something. The important is to be good with yourself to not get
frustrated in the future.

~~~
lgieron
> Is kind of a case where beyond being a manager, you need to be a
> psychologist.

Not beyond - good understanding of psychology is a core competency for any
manager.

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petervandijck
Let me just disagree here: a manager is NOT a psychologist, and shouldn't try
to be one. Good understanding of psychology has NOTHING to do with managing
people. People skills yes, but that is something entirely different from
psychology.

A great psychologist can suck at managing people.

They are entirely different skills, with very little overlap.

~~~
floppydisk
I'm going to respectfully disagree with you here and argue that understanding
some facets of psychology (perhaps wrapped in a broader definition of people
skills) are essential to long term success managing teams and projects.

Specifically, understanding Goal-Setting Theory, Motivation Theory, and Self-
Regulation Theory can provide substantial insights into why people think the
way they do and give managers a framework to understand their employees and
how their actions will impact their motivation and goals. The book PeopleWare
touches on this a little bit when they discuss the role of autonomy in
improving worker performance. Knowing that people like to feel ownership of
their work and projects helps me, as a manager, guide the team and work on
framing things in terms of my direct reports exercising autonomy rather than
me dictating. They'll be happier and feel more involved in the work and as a
result, the quality of work will be higher.

This isn't to say you need to be a life coach, therapist, and parental figure
wrapped up in one. That's not your job -- though team member's lives will
impact their work at some point and you'll need to empathetic. Your job to is
to guide your team to meeting their objectives and understanding part of the
human psyche and what motivates people will make you better at this job. Hands
down.

~~~
lgieron
I'd add to that some understanding about major personality types/dimensions.
Being able to recognize them helps you in negotiations, assigning people to
roles etc.

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twunde
I'm currently in transition from developer to PM. As a developer you always
have the ability to bang something out and do something. As a PM, there are
more frustrating days. I spend my day answering emails, tracking down
stakeholders so I can figure out what the requirements are, getting the status
of work, and reporting on the work. The bad days are when you get emergency
requests or requests that don't make sense. You need to be able to work with
everyone and see their point of view, even if you think they are incompetent

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hahla
I cant provide an answer to your specific question, however you should note
when moving from any non-management position into a management position many
people lack the skills needed to adequately perform their job. Not everyone is
naturally talented at managing others, progressing through the workload,
keeping up morale, motivating subordinates etc. I think this is a big failure
point for people transitioning into these types of careers. Your stance on
what project managers do stood out to me. At the end of the day many
management positions require exactly that from you.

~~~
petervandijck
"Not everyone is naturally talented at managing others" -> moreso: nobody is
naturally talented at managing others. Some people have the required talents
(empathy, people skills, listening talents, caring talents), but in the end
managing people is an entirely unnatural skillset that needs to be learned.

Which is why there is so much bad management.

