A frequent question I hear is "how do I know if people leadership is the right path for me?"
Fortunately, there are many brilliant thought leaders who have published their advice on this topic. This post is a compilation of my favorite articles, resources, and reflection exercises on the topic.
Articles:
Charity Majors, EM: The Pendulum or the Ladder
Matthew Vanderzee, Should I become an Engineering Manager?
Books:
The Manager’s Path, Camille Fournier
Managing Humans, Micheal Lopp
Radical Candor, Kim Scott
Self reflection exercises:
Set a timer to go off every hour throughout your workday. At the hour, take a pulse and write down your energy level on a scale of 1-10;
Do I feel excited and energized with the work I was doing the last hour?
Did the last hour seem to pass slower, or quicker?
Capture data for at least 2 weeks and organize the activities into themes:
Coding
Reviewing code
Architecting or designing a solution
Meetings
Analyze the themes to track how your energy level changed; are there patterns to indicate if certain activities (coding, meeting discussions) made you feel energized, or that time seemed to fly by?
Make a list of the responsibilities/tasks you would & wouldn’t miss about being an individual contributor if you moved into a Manager role
Make a list of areas/EM activities/meetings that you would like to get more exposure to. Make a plan with <your leader> to start attending/fulfilling those activities.
Request feedback from key partners on the key skills identified step 1; teams that you work with, <Engineers> that you have mentored
