Dev's technical track - what's next?

Question

I'm a tech-minded dev. I analyze, design, code and debug - and I'm good at it. On the other hand, I'm not that good with people, especially those who I think are slacking off or not put enough effort into learning new things. Also, I'm highly competitive and usually stubborn. This probably closes the management door for me - I'm not good at it, and I don't like it.

However, I've rarely seen anyone advancing in this track beyond "activity leader or "technical leader" in a team, and the pyramid get's a lot narrower than it does in management.

What tracks are available to a person like me? How can I keep "climbing the ladder", meeting new challenges with in rising scale of difficulty? I'm afraid that I'll reach a peak where I'd look ahead and say "it's not worth going in there - either I've done it (tech) or I don't want to (mgmt)". What tracks are you people on?

(Sorry if I come off an as an arrogant egomaniac)

Answer 1

Without the people skills, tech lead is about where you'll max out.

For a lot of people it's not a bad place to be... you might have a couple of junior guys under you to help out, or you might have some people sys-admining, testing, or helping out in some other way.

The main (advantage or drawback, depending on your POV) is that you will still be dependent on someone else to interface with the customer or other parts of the organization for you. This is either frustrating or a burden off your shoulders, again depending on your POV.

Here's a great book in either case: "How To Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. It's a No-BS piece of work.

Good Luck!

Answer 2

(Sorry for replying instead of editing, I managed to get disconnected from my previous account)

These are not the answers I was hoping for :( I was hoping for a "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" kind of track, with ever more difficult problems (and satisfaction of solving them).

Do you think there comes a time when there aren't any new problems in development, and the only new challenges lie in management?

Answer 3

Do you think there comes a time when there aren't any new problems in development, and the only new challenges lie in management?

There will always be problems to solve in development, but eventually you will find yourself solving the same problems if you can't move somehow. If you aren't interested in moving into management, one thing to consider is looking for companies that have better technical ladders. Or maybe try to move into system architecting, rather than primarily implementation.

If all else fails, move to a different company or division. You might be great at building desktop apps in C++ (for example), but are you also great at internationalization, database engineering, device drivers, security, grid computing, etc.? Find something else that you want to learn about and begin to move in that direction. It's not the same as moving up the ladder, but at least there will be new challenges and things to learn.

You cannot stay in the same position and expect to always have unique challenges. Even most CEOs eventually get bored and move on to something else, so climbing the ladder won't guarantee a steady flow of interesting work, either. But the interesting work is unlikely to come to you. You need to seek it out. If that means moving up the ladder, then find a way to move up the ladder. If it means finding new work, then do so. If you want interesting work, then you'll have to work to find it.

Answer 4

Think about the software architect track. Good coders are needed at the research side of product development.

Also remember that management is really programming people =>

Its fun the syntax is quite easy, but you find the individual compliers buggy at best - leading to many patterns of people programming.

Answer 5

I'm thinking about becoming a part-time trainer. I really love sharing my experiences and teaching, and in fact I am doing both already as a trainor for junior devs in my company and as a regular speaker at MSDN Sessions and UG talks the past year.

I'm hoping that I could eventually move on to create my own business, probably an ISV that produces one product and does training for other devs (in a non-Certification Centric manner) on the side.

Answer 6

Training, and writing and editing training material, is a great way to find new challenges. It particularly challenges on completeness of ideas - you start to find holes in your understanding very quickly when you try to produce a comprehensive written description of something. The classroom environment also allows you vicarious experience which keeps the variety up and keeps things interesting. It won't get you further up any ladder though.

Security offers some very interesting possibilities. The job descriptions are broader, probably because it's a youngish, fast developing field. It also seems to offer the highest level pure technical positions, at least for the moment.

Answer 7

What about finding a small project (2 / 3 people) that would involve you doing the "management" i.e. some PM / some BA on top of a bit of "tech lead." plus perhaps some testing?

That way, you could minimize the people interaction but still get some exposure to new environments and challenges.

You'll be amazed at how many opportunities there are for this because most people don't multitask so typically this kind of project requires a PM, a BA, a tech. lead, some developers and some testers. That blows the cost out of the water so the client won't bite. On the other hand, if you could fill all those roles on a part-time basis, that drops the cost dramatically.