
Ask HN: Is Project Manager a Step Up from Senior Engineer - GFischer
I&#x27;m currently working as Senior Engineer, I&#x27;m near 40 and have almost 20 years of experience in several roles.<p>I&#x27;m worried about career progression, I&#x27;ve tried several times to get a leadership position and have either been passed over or been shot down as &quot;too technical&quot; (with vague promises of being made Architect &quot;someday&quot;). I even got a Master&#x27;s degree, PMI and agile studies to aid me.<p>I was recently approached for a junior manager position, but due to my lack of leadership experience they&#x27;re offering a project manager role instead, with (supposed) potential to climb the ladder later.<p>Is this a good career move or am I limiting myself? Is leaving development a trap? I don&#x27;t mind and would particularly like working with clients and business problem solving - I&#x27;d love a product role or team leadership, but I&#x27;m not offered those. Would I be better off trying to start working as a consultant?
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bradknowles
I’m a Senior DevOps Engineer at 53, with over 30 years experience. I first
became a Senior at the age of 29, with just six years of experience in the
field.

I learned long ago that I hate, loathe, and despise doing any kind of
management job, and I am horribly bad at doing it when I’m forced into those
kinds of roles. That’s why I’m still an Engineer.

I can do the 2nd in command role reasonably well, at least for short periods
of time. I like to think I’m pretty good at providing technical leadership on
things.

But I find that most people who are good at management tasks, that is
something they usually find out fairly early in their lives, and they tend to
go down a different path than I have done. I have known some technical people
who then later switched over to management and done a good job at that, but
they are in the minority. Most of the good managers I’ve known are managers
first and techies second.

I see it as a lot like being left or right-handed. Sure, you can use your off
hand to do some things, and you might even get pretty good at it. But you’re
pretty much guaranteed to always be better at doing those same things with
your dominant hand. Unless you’re ambidextrous, of course. Of course, you can
always make a point of training your off hand as much as possible, and most of
that training will directly transfer without conscious effort to your dominant
hand. And it will probably always be a lot of extra work and never feel as
natural.

Anyway, this is my truth, as an aging Caucasian overweight computer geek here
in Austin, Texas, but I’ve also lived and worked professionally in the
Washington, DC region and Brussels, Belgium, and done short six month
contracts in places like Denver, Colorado and Cupertino, California.

Among others, I’ve worked for the Defense Information Systems Agency in the
Pentagon, AOL during their mid-90s heyday, companies in Europe you’ve never
heard of, small consulting companies, and VMWare, and I’ve consulted for
companies like AT&T, Apple, and Raytheon, to name a few.

I can’t speak for what your experiences might be in your location.

All of that said, don’t let me discourage you from trying, if that’s what you
really want to do. But I would encourage you to do as much research as you can
on the exact type of work you would be doing, if you were to switch roles.

Changing career paths is one of the biggest things you can do in your career,
and your life. And it can be damn scary. But it can also be very fulfilling,
if you make the right switch and at the right time.

~~~
GFischer
Thank you for your advice and taking the time to write this.

I'll definitely think about it.

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Jemaclus
> I've tried several times to get a leadership position and have either been
> passed over or shot down as "too technical".

This is probably an obvious question, so I apologize in advance if you've
already done this, but have you talked directly to your manager about this? I
strongly believe that you don't get what you don't ask for, but sometimes it's
hard to actually ask for it in a way that gets your boss on your side. That's
the trick, really. You want your boss to be your ally on your career journey,
not just an authority figure who hands out job assignments.

One strategy that has worked well for me over the years is to go to a 1:1 with
my boss, bring up career progression, and say something along the lines of "In
5 years, I want your job (or $Y job). What do I need to do to get there?"

If you have a good boss, they should be happy to help you and the two of you
can come up with a plan with milestones to get you to the role you want. If
you want to be a manager, maybe they can let you unofficially manage someone
for a few months and then make it more official, starting with just one person
and then expanding from there. If you want to be an Architect, then the two of
you can define the steps that it would take to convince The Powers That Be
that you deserve that. If you want to transition into product management, they
can help you with that, too. Your career journey is up to _you_ , not your
boss. Ask, and ye shall receive. And if not...

Well... if your boss gives you vague answers and platitudes... you should
probably look elsewhere and find someone who does appreciate someone with some
ambition. Shitty answer that you probably don't want to hear, but IMO, it's
for the best.

On that note, another strategy to get the job you want is to _look for a new
job_. The _best_ way to get a promotion and more money is to transfer
companies, versus climbing an internal career ladder. If you're as technical
and senior as you imply and live in a place with decent job opportunities, you
could almost certainly find an Architect role somewhere that would appreciate
your ambition and expertise.

~~~
GFischer
Thank you for your answer. I've raised it with management at my current
company, which is a good one, but not a software company and thus limited in
growth for technical team members. My current manager was honest in his
assesment at least.

In a previous job, they did promise me a management position, there was one I
do believe they meant for me but the planned expansion was canceled, and I was
passed over for another position which was the reason for me leaving.

I live in a city which is among the best in Latin America but nothing like the
U.S., architect positions are very rare and management positions are not
usually posted. That's why I'm tempted to take the PM position, as it is for a
software outsourcing company. Maybe I can raise my expectations during the
interview process.

~~~
Jemaclus
Gotcha. That's difficult. What I recommend, then, is that you decide what your
career goal is and bring that up as a long-term goal. In a lot of interviews,
they'll ask you where you see yourself in 5 years, and people give whatever
their answer is. I've found that the best thing to do is identify a particular
role or person and say "I want _that_ in 5 years." And then make sure that is
a possibility (and believe them when they say it is!), and then ask about
milestones.

Good luck. :)

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RocketSyntax
No. I wouldn't do it. You can be a project manager right out of school. I was.

I'd recommend pushing for product manager/ product owner position. It's a
pretty fluid role and many job reqs want computer science education.

[https://www.linkedin.com/in/laynesadler/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/laynesadler/)

~~~
_ah
I agree with this assessment.

Project Manager, Product Manger / Product Owner, and Program Manager are all
different roles. They are related and often confused. I would definitely not
trade Sr Dev for PjM.

A more interesting question is why you're considering this change. Do you want
to work more with technical leadership? Tech Lead / Architect is the correct
role. Do you want more exposure to the business side (sales, costs, profits,
etc)? Then you want a Product role. Do you love people and enjoy helping them
grow? Engineering Manager is a good spot. Scared of age discrimination? Become
an expert on some really difficult technology that's key to your company's
business.

I'm not sure how things work in your particular country / company, but here in
the US I've never seen a Project Manager --> Engineering Manager transition,
since EngMgr is typically expected to be highly technical and still
occasionally checking in code.

Additional: The statement that you're "too technical" to be a manager
communicates two things to me: (1) They don't believe you have the appropriate
interpersonal and leadership skills to execute well in this role. (2) You are
valuable in your current chair and they don't want to be bothered with
replacing you. Regardless of where you work, I'd recommend working on both of
these problems. A great way to do this is to start training other more junior
people to take over your job and responsibilities. This demonstrates that you
can mentor others, invest in people, and also provides a back-fill when you
vacate your position.

~~~
GFischer
Thank you. I agree with your assesment on the "too technical" message.

I'll think about your post.

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moksly
I tried to get into management because I was afraid of ageism and no-career-
path in development, but I quickly learned that I actually love building
things. So now I’m just sticking to being a developer and I’ll see where that
goes.

It does seem like there are a lot, and I mean a lot, of people who are capable
of being managers/project managers/business consultants while actual
developers are rather rare. And once you stop caring about the corporate game,
it becomes really easy to sit back and let those types squabble aboout for
influence while you just build whatever is decided on.

