[lucasgonze]

I was an engineer, then a manager, and now I'm transitioning back to about 80% IC work. There were a couple big obstacles.

- Getting your skills back means getting hired to do engineering in the absence of sharp skills. I had to fake-it-to-make-it for a little while.

- Moving from manager to IC is a risky story on your resume, where you want to show continuous growth. You can't take just any IC role. In some way it has to show a positive career trajectory.

Now that I'm over the hump things are great. I love engineering and am glad to do it all day.