[siliconc0w]

The reality is that there is no escaping management. A high level IC is pretty much just an unofficial manager. You are responsible for a large technical area - it's your job to meet with stakeholders, design the roadmap, build durable team processes to maintain velocity, mentor and identify the right work for the right people. You may not have back to back meetings but between 1:1s, stakeholders, projects, and ad-hoc fires they're likely still a majority your schedule. You are expected to lead without authority. Leadership will change priorities and reorganize the teams every six months. If you're focused and deliberate, you can maybe get can your project landed before the next reorg.

[afc]

I went back to a senior IC role after managing for 5 years and I think there are big differences. Yeah, some aspects have to do with leadership (regardless of whether or not you manage) and there's overlap, but... there are also huge differences. I wrote about one I experienced: https://alejo.ch/3g9