“I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place: too rusty to go back to IC software development, but not experienced enough for higher levels of engineering leadership.”

I was systematically bullied, scapegoated, and pushed out of a job I loved because a new manager joined to “clean house” a few months prior to my departure. I had just been promoted before that manager joined. My tenure at that company was full of measurable value, initiatives, and processes I started that the teams there are publicly running and benefitting from today. The company was (and likely still is) incredibly toxic in other ways that I cannot name, but the work itself was fulfilling and exactly the type of work I saw myself doing and continuing to grow into.

Unlike many EMs, I deliberately chose a management career path to get away from hands on technical work to focus on developing people and processes. However, AI permeating the industry has made disdain towards pure engineering people managers more acceptable by reducing this type of work to “just” coordination, instead of recognizing it as its own distinct skill requiring significant cognitive labor. I have much higher disdain for AI in software development than majority of tech leaders in this field, which is a very unpopular position to have in this day and age, so it’s not something I advertise publicly. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place: too rusty to go back to IC software development, but not experienced enough for higher levels of engineering leadership.

I am lucky to have a supportive and employed spouse, making my runway possible in ways that it wouldn’t have been otherwise. However, it stings knowing that our household income has been cut in half over the course of the past year, and the gap continues to grow.