[epc]

Once you become a manager your perceived technical value will be zero, regardless of your past contributions or current skill set. If you're cool with that, and have no plans to return to being "just an engineer" then go into management.

Don't do it if you ever plan to join someone else's startup.

Don't do it if you aren't a people person, or savvy with organizational politics.

Don't do it if you do not enjoy confronting people (regardless of what the confrontation is over, the entire point of being a manager is to manage confrontations in many organizations, between labor and management, between organizations, etc).

You're better off if you're in Corporate America and there's a clear management career path. If you're in startup land you're better off staying an engineer, unless you plan to retire by age 40.