So I've been a long time lurker on HN for a few years now. I'm well aware that this is basically the opposite issue of every other HN post of a dev who wants to avoid it.
I'm a Midwest .NET dev (near Chicago) doing simple CRUD apps at a company here for about 3 years now. This is my first job out of college. I went back to school later in life (I'm in my late 20's) so I'm not exactly green when it comes to corporate politics.
During the time before getting my CS degree, I was scrounging to stay afloat taking whatever jobs I could. I had to develop many people skills that I often feel like are very lacking among IT individuals. I often get comments where people say "You're not like regular IT folks" or something along those lines since I'm pretty social and have tons of non-computer related hobbies. That being said, I often feel like I'm not like most developers because of it. So it's hard for me to identify with people who spend all their free time coding for FOSS or making videogames after work.
Knowing this, I really do feel like I'd much rather be in management. I love having long meetings, chatting with people, making decisions on what should be done, don't mind taking over where other people messed up, setting directives, etc. If I'm coding constantly, I'm just not happy. There is nothing personal about programming and it's not as exciting as dealing with people issues.
In my current position, it is very much a very traditional slow moving org with a ton of dead weight. So it's not a hard job. But with that, it means people don't leave as easily unless they're pushed out the door. So it's difficult to get a management position unless you stay long enough.
I am currently getting a MA in Business (not an MBA, but it's really cheap and easy state school). I know that doesn't do much, but I figured it was a start. Is there anything I can or should be doing? Routes I should take? Risks even? I just don't see myself as a developer, just someone who figured out how to get my foot in the door by doing development work.
