I've been in Cyber Security ever since I graduated college, so 5 years. I've always been at the "analyst" level, which involves doing investigations, documentations, actions as a response to the investigations, etc.

Every team needs a manager. And pretty much every manager makes more than their subordinates (not including overtime for the subordinates, if applicable), despite "delegating" all of the team's work to them. Also management typically comes with lots of BS dealing with subordinates that have complicated lives and situations, as well as accepting higher responsibilities compared to their subordinates, and being a part of bigger picture meetings/projects/topics.

For the last 5 years I've wanted zero part in any kind of leadership / management position. And I still feel this way overall today. But I have to admit to myself that this comes with a cost of limiting my financial potential. It frustrates me that my manager who doesn't know how to do what I do, makes like $200k+ probably and seems to just attend meetings, do time sheets, and delegate work/projects passed off to him to his subordinates.

What do misc? Anyone feel like me now? Anyone felt like me before, and then went into management anyways, and have some feedback?

Always interesting to see this topic posted. Most highly technical engineers are not the type of person to be happy “managing” people or actually being a leader type

Management and high level ICs typically self segregate in big tech and this thread is a prime example of that.

I would advice you to pursue management track even if u dont enjoy it, the skillset translates and works in other functions (HR, finance, etc), in top of being the only way to make more money

Tradier here. The most skilled tradies often get offered "foreman" but reject it saying it's not worth the headache.

People say this but the reality is if you were to stop being a productive member of your team due to personal issues you'd be let go. With that in mind, it shouldn't be particularly difficult to deal with subordinates not pulling their weight?

managed many teams some were a total bunch of useless cnts and some were great

the best teams are those you recruit yourself not a bunch of fkrs who have been stuck doing the same chit the same way for years


i am now a manager who manages no one.....its the best of both worlds

Ditto OP.

I never much liked the idea of it cause it always struck me as a bull**** job, and virtually every person I’ve met who was eager to be a manager has been a right kunt.

Most people just do it for the money I’m guessing.

I like to mentor people in a team, but managing has stupid headaches.

Even if you have the best team, you still got to worry about outside politics, HR chit, admin, etc

And if you don't have the best team, it's just a bad time until you a) cut off deadwood b) hire actually good people
Good people go bad too, so you're never in a stable position

People who can navigate the politics can manage a chit team and still thrive in workplace

bump good thread

I'm in marketing rather than technology, but I went from being an individual contributor to managing a team about 6 years ago. I'm a hands-on manager that has done most of the tasks that I assign to my team and still pitches in on day-to-day work. It makes a big difference knowing the ins and outs of the tasks that I'm assigning, both in knowing exactly what it takes to get the job done and being able to fairly assess and manage workloads. Generally, I have had great retention and comraderie amongst my team even through Covid. Downside is I'm fairly certain my SVP boss thinks I'm less qualified to be a "thought leader" and shouldn't be included in big picture conversations. Of course, she and every other big picture leader in my company has had turnover and morale issues because they are perpetually out of touch with what their teams are working on. In fact, when I have had turnover, I've consistently "stolen" experienced people from other teams to bolster my own.

Yeah, this is where im at in my career, Ive kinda stalled in pay because the next step up is a managerial role and I dont want to deal with "schedules" and HS drama from grown ass adults and having to be "salary"

So i'm currently getting certification to be a Data Scientist. They make as much money as any manager in my field, but they just have to worry about work while they're at work, and I have the option of being remote.

it's the logical progression of any career unfortunately. Eventually you're going to get sick of the day to day worker bee task and will wish you transitioned to management. Maybe you'll be good at the meeting BS and work your way up the corporate ladder and out of middle management.

The door to the executive offices isn't opened with Monsters and Skoal.

I worked at a company that had a parallel technical and management track. If you were a top 10% engineer in the company (as recognized by annual reviews, patents, etc), you would get front line manager money. If you were a top 3% engineer, you would get director money.

I'm at a place now that pays almost entirely based on time in seat for years 1-10 and promotes politically beyond that. Taking on management responsibilities is almost kind of a quid pro quo to keep moving up.

you would be wrong sir.
corporations make it almost impossible to fire someone who is fuking off in a timely manner.
they have to violate the company code to be terminated on the spot.

it could take you months to rid yourself of a bad employee because HR is involved and they make you give that person multiple chances before termination so the company doesn't get sued or when they are sued they have documentation of how they gave the employee every chance.

it's a headache.
not to mention it takes months to replace that person.

Any more promotions for me would mean no more overtime and therefore way less money so that's a no thanks jeff for me.

If you have strong specialized technical skills, I would look at whether consulting is an option to boost $$$ while dodging some of the burden that comes with being a longer-term manager in a company

I'm at the point where they want me to fill in for my supervisor when he's out, and I really have no interest in doing so. I'd get a pay bump when filling in and there's not much to the job (especially when just filling in). But taking on a supervisor role full time would be the next step. Maybe some day I'll find it appealing.Depends where you work. I've observed it's often very difficult, especially without documentation and depending on HR.

this, in Mexico u get 1 month per year worked as severance as well, so firing a long time employee costs 1-2 years salary on top of being on the hook for a wrongful termination lawsuit

Age: 51

yeah, and plan on only working another 5 years so doesn't make sense to move into a new position.

Didn't expect all of these responses for this topic, pleased to see where some of y'all went in terms of the thought process and your own experiences. I was going to quote a bunch of posters and add thoughts / direct replies, but figured might as well just post some thoughts freely instead.

My team is definitely an unhealthy mix of STRONG members, and WEAK members. Several folks have been on the team for YEARS and can't retain, can't apply higher level concepts, struggle with anything NEW, and clearly don't have the drive or urge to learn more and avoid conveying incompetence. The weaker members on the team were either moved from other teams due to team disbandonment and layoffs, and other weaker teammates IMO TBH are only here on the team due to demographics whilst having zero relevant experience/certifications/education both before and after the job.

The job is clearly over some people's heads, and some of them have absolute chaotic lives that cause them to abruptly miss work unexpectedly CONSISTENTLY or just have "internet issues" 24/7 conveniently during our remote jobs. These people continue to show lack of growth and/or consistent chaotic lifestyle drama that conflicts with work, and they never get fired. Ever. I work in a massive corp though, so that's probably a big part of the "why," behind it. A former employee I know put it best when he said they viewed my company like it were a Government job, great benefits, impeccable retention, and I think he's right.

Being put in a position where I'd manage subordinates, and clear weak outliers were on my team that couldn't be fired... it would drive me nuts.

managercel checking in

the key is to become convincing at pretending you're listening to underlings talking and then say what you would have said if they never spoke

it's very much like talking to a gal, actually

It's annoying in my position since I have a warehouse setting, but I can only imagine what it is like in a corporate setting.

I was hoping to get away from management, but tbh, that's where the money is. I was looking at analyst positions, but the salary for entry level is about half of what I can make just making a lateral move to a bigger company for my position.

I get what you're saying though OP. There are a lot of headaches, it's annoying dealing with weak links, but it has to get done.

I actually do kind of like the delegating and planning. Every day I basically set up everything to go as efficiently as possible, everything gets done in time, and then put out all the "fires" all day. The reason I like that is because you have the control to create a good business or make sure things get done. It takes more responsibility, and you have to pull extra weight usually, but you usually figure out a good cohesion in your team that works. More rewarding as well.

Again though, I'm not in corporate. I deal with our corporate daily and it seems like a nightmare. So I can't say for sure how bad it could be.

That's not just what goes into management.

Anyway I interviewed for a manager role a few months ago at my other company because I wanted to go in a more high impact role.

Managers have to manage PEOPLE, train people up, do budgeting, ensure initiatives are implemented, prevent roadblocks that impact their ICs from doing their job. They have to do some degree of resource management and determine not only the strengths and weaknesses of the team but also each individual.

Some people aren't cut for it and frankly meeting after meeting can be laborious.

I too interviewed for it because I thought it would be a more natural progression for me. You have to do some soul searching as to whether or not you truly are up to that stuff. Middle management is at times a thankless job.

Ultimately I decided I'd rather stay the individual contributor route now and go into tech sales. It aligns more with my strengths and provides a sense of challenge compared to my previous role.

This is kind of where I am. QA Analyst, but i accepted a pay raise to learn to be back up to management and am tracking in that direction. I didn't want to say no to promotion/raises, but i've always enjoyed the simplicity of just someone assigning me my tasks, working on them one by one and turning them in and being done.

Now there's more dealing with client emails, and just in general way more emails always going back and forth constantly and a pain to keep track of multiple email chains on various topics going on daily, and having to actually plan sh*t around moving target dates, and just the constant bombardment of questions that come at you.

become manager and fire the weak rats, easy srs

Pretty much nailed it in general.

Management in a technical environment is a difficult balance. The type of personality that excels in a technical role, does not, apart from outliers, excel in a managerial role.

Technical people do well running start ups, but tend to get progressively worse the larger the company grows. Different skill sets are required for different stages and different sizes of companies.

I devolved some of my responsibilities when my daughter was born, but I would have ultimately had to do it regardless. The company is reaching a size where it needs a slightly different skill set to the one I have. We are approaching the limits of my management ability.

All anybody can do is be honest with themselves about their strengths and weaknesses and whilst not necessarilyalwaysplaying to their strengths, do not put themselves in a position where things depend on their weaknesses.

Get into fedramp assessments

Good pay, and even managing isnt all that bad. You can still do actual assessments while managing. Or do advisory work.

As you illustrated, a prerequisite for being a good manager is to have had experience with the specific work their team does. Without that personal experience, there's always going to be a disconnect between the work that the team does and how fairly the manager assesses output. No one likes putting in a chitload of time and effort into a piece of work and then have some other fukstick get rewarded for completing a trivial task.I wish lol. I've been demotivated in my current role for a long time so have been looking for something else. I know my role well so I could slack off but there's too much fear of being let go.