Mid-40's here. I'm in management but considering getting back into development/architecture. I've kept up with my skills in Java and DevOps and Kubernetes so I have a breadth of knowledge and skills that I know people are looking for. Management was my plan B and honestly I hate it.
A couple of years ago, the company I worked for abruptly went out of business (like, I came into work on Monday and they said, “we’re closed effectively immediately, go home, we’ll e-mail you severance details”). I sent out about a dozen resumes, got two interviews, flunked the first and got an offer at the second - the whole process took about two weeks and I was no longer unemployed. I was on good terms with one of the VP’s at that company, who also lives close to me - I ran into him about a year later and I asked him how things were and he said, “well, I’m still looking for a job…” We were both around the same age (over 40, anyway) - I’m not so sure management is as unemployment-proof as some of us have been led to believe.
Development skills are absolutely 100% more portable than management skills, because a) basic math says that everyone hires way more devs than they hire dev managers, and b) many dev managers get promoted from within so there are even fewer hires out there than there are positions. The further up you go, the more true this is.
Having closely watched someone go through a director-level job search vs. having jobs thrown in my lap as a developer, empirical reality matches theory here, too.
When you need 1 manager for every ~8-10 ICs, and one 2nd level manager for every ~8-10 first level managers, and so on, the jobs become fewer and further between the higher you go up. Management does not seem like the path of job security to me.
Right. It's a path to faster financial security though. Realistically, the amount of time it takes for them to find a new VP role is baked into the compensation.
This is especially dangerous if you've been promoted rapidly within a company. If you add value and do well someone can be promoted to say director / second line manager within 3-4 years. But with a total of 3-4 years of management experience, it'll be tough to find a comparable position outside.
Yup, I know an engineering director who had a similar story. It took him about 8 months to find a new job. He did ultimately get another engineering director job though.
Which is fairly common, and often why compensation packages for folks in those positions are structured the way they are.
The assumption is that someone leaving a director/VP level position will not find another job quickly.
They often have severance agreements that provide either large lump sum payouts to cover them while they look, or multi-month notice that they're being let go (I've seen 3 months and 12 months, with the expectation being that they'll continue in an advisory position and draw salary during that time, but focus mostly on job hunting).
I think that's great to realize! Management is really a career change, not a promotion. Too many managers aren't good at it but stick with it because they like the status.
I think you'll also find hiring managers receptive to that if you pitch it right. I know I'd be happy to hire somebody in that situation as long as they were really excited to get back to building things. The easiest people to manage are the ones who appreciate what good managers do and work with that, which should come naturally for you now.
I did the same thing. I was in management for 5 years, it was ok but it can be a dangerous place to be. Your tech skills start to atrophy and companies continue to embrace a "lean" model with less management and more developers.
