I have been an SDM (or variations thereof) for about 11 years now, having worked at FAANG and other similar companies. Luckily I have always tried to keep my technical skills sharp (I'm now completing a Masters in CS from Georgia Tech with 4.0 GPA) in the hopes of avoiding becoming a power point architect or a general manager.
After the latest professional experience as SDM, I am ready to call it quits. I made up my mind about wanting to be an engineer again, with the good and bad that come with it.
Struggling with a few questions:
1) I've grown up to Sr. Manager (typical L7) but I'm unsure of which level I should apply for, when targeting SDE positions. My former VP at Amazon for example makes it clear not to hire L5 engineers from industry with > 10 years exp. I feel like Principal would be a bit above my skills, so L6 should be fine, but open to opinions.
2) Resume: I have led many large projects, reviewing work, contributing some to the design, but lets face it: 10 years as SDM != 10 years as SDE. What are some things I could do to boost my profile and prove to potential employers I can actually do the engineering work? Maybe side project, OSS contributions? I still have some contribs from my time at Microsoft (wrote the entire SDK set for 4 languages and 12 services, as a manager), but I don't feel it's enough.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
