Why you shouldn't become a manager

7 reasons you should reconsider your thoughts about changing roles

Picture this. You’ve been worked hard for a number of years, mentored a few engineers, and maybe even your line manager has uttered the words “you’ve got management potential” during one of your 1-1 sessions.

You now find yourself staring at a fork in the road and asking yourself the question should I become a manager? 🤔

Today I’m going to offer an unpopular opinion - maybe you shouldn’t.

Not because you’re not good enough, but because there is a lot more to management that initially meets the eye. It’s possible that the job of management might not be good enough for you.

Let’s talk about the things they don’t tell you about on the promo slides for management roles.

1. You will code less / not at all

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first - you will code significantly less.

As an engineer the majority of your time is spent tapping some clever sequence of characters into an IDE and making the magic happen. If this is a part of your role that you enjoy immensely, it’s worth considering whether a significant drop in coding (or maybe non at all) would be the worst change to your daily routine since deciding to learn Angular.

Yes, some managers still code. But even if you do, it's not the same. You're not a maker anymore. You're a multiplier. Your job is now about unblocking other people so they can ship code. If that doesn't spark joy, stop here.

2. Your impact becomes harder to measure (and sometimes invisible)

As an IC (individual contributor), you might close a ticket, ship a feature, improve performance by 50%, or kill some legacy bug that has plagued the system for years. Real tangible wins. Cause and effect.

As a manager? You might find yourself spending three weeks mediating a conflict between two engineers and no one even knows it happened. Or you rewrite the on-call rota so people stop burning out, but the only metric that moves is your own stress level.

Impact becomes fuzzier. It takes longer to see. And a lot of it happens in the shadows.

If you thrive on quick wins and frequent public recognition, this will be an interesting move. I find that being a manager is more about being the one providing the recognitions, less so about receiving them.

3. You will have hard conversations. Regularly.

Firing someone. Giving tough feedback. Telling a high performer they’re not getting promoted. Navigating someone’s personal crisis.

If you're doing the job right, you will have uncomfortable conversations. A lot of people underestimate just how emotionally draining this can be. It's not about being "nice" or "mean" - it's about being fair, direct, and compassionate under pressure.

If you’re conflict-avoidant, you can grow into it - but it’s still worth asking: Do I want this to be part of my daily job?

Don’t get me wrong, performance issues aren’t always a continual thing, but it would be super naïve to assume they would never cross your path. At some point you will have to face into these challenging situations. The other thing to mention here is that you often won’t be alone in your struggles, so you can certainly lean on the experience of your peers to seek advice.

4. You serve the business, not just the team

When you become a manager, your allegiance subtly shifts. You’re now balancing the needs of your team and the needs of the business.

Sometimes that means delivering unpopular news. Sometimes that means not sharing everything you know (not lying, but being strategic in your communication). Sometimes it means defending a strategy you didn’t choose.

You’re no longer a free agent advocating solely for what you think is right. You’re a node in a system. And that can feel weird.

Company culture also plays massively into this aspect of management. Depending on the business there may be more or less influence you can make within a management position, so it’s not all doom and gloom. You don’t suddenly become a slave to the machine, it’s just that your responsibility shifts and needs to be more considered.

5. Career growth becomes murkier

As a senior engineer, your growth path might be: Staff → Principal → Distinguished (or whatever the titles might be). You keep deepening your craft and specialising in the technical aspects of the role.

As a manager? It gets blurrier. Do you want to be a senior manager? A head of? Director? VP? CTO?

Each step up removes you further from the craft and closer to strategy, politics, and corporate weirdness. That’s fine if that’s what you want. But a lot of people climb two rungs, look around, and think what the hell am I doing here?

6. You are accountable for things you can’t directly control

When an engineer misses a deadline, people look at you. When someone quits unexpectedly, people might ask why you didn’t see it coming. When your team underperforms, you're generally the one answering questions.

As a manager, you own outcomes - even when the inputs are wildly outside your control.

If you're not okay living in the ambiguity of that, it's going to keep you up at night. Sure there are things you can do to reduce the ambiguity and mitigate risks, but there is always an element of the unknown.

7. You don’t need the title to lead

This one’s big.

You can mentor people. Drive initiatives. Influence decisions. Uplift your team. Improve culture. All without becoming a line manager.

Leadership isn't a job title - it’s a behaviour.

Some of the best leaders I’ve ever seen were Senior Engineers or Product Owners who had no direct reports but shaped the team in massive ways. Their mindset, their problem-solving, their communication skills have always been a cut above the rest.

So don’t conflate influence with authority. You can have one without needing the other.

Final thought: It’s not a promotion. It’s a career change.

Too often, we treat management like a prize for being a good engineer. It's not. It's a completely different job and we must remember this.

And it’s okay to say no.

Do you want to stay on the technical track and go deep? Amazing.
Do you want to coach, mentor, and amplify others as a manager? Also amazing.

Just make the choice with your eyes open and be aware of what each role will bring in terms of challenges and opportunities.

Because it’s a hell of a lot easier to step into management than it is to step back out of it.

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Thanks for reading this week’s edition of The Manager’s Mindset. I really appreciate you taking the time to follow along — I know how busy the life of a manager (or future manager) can be.

If you found this useful, feel free to subscribe for free to get weekly posts straight to your inbox — covering everything from leadership theory to real-life management moments, lessons learned, and the occasional rant about the world of work.

Until next time,
Mike 👋