Been toying with the idea of getting back to IC. Been engineering Manager for four years now, but really miss development and getting hands dirty. However, I recently assigned a small feature to myself and was amazed at a few things: how much I had to look up to remind meself about language specific syntax, how much has changed (good ole Javascript), and how FAST time flies by when I get in the zone. I struggle with making the leap back because I'm slightly worried about what others would think. The company I work for doesn't have IC track neither, very up or out. So it's either jump ship to another company as IC and go through interview process, leetcode bs and probably lower paying position OR stick it out in Management and get my kicks through the team. Decisions, decisions.
Honestly, I feel mentally done after sitting on calls for 5hrs in the morning. By the time I get to the afternoon, any energy I would have had for coding or research is gone. I'll typically pickup a small bug to fix or work on something brainless, and call it a day.
Agree though, someone always pings for something, so that is what I'll do for remainder of day.
The meetings in the morning are a really killer though - offshore team + 2 daily stand-ups + scrum of scrums, it's got me drained and looking for another gig.
Great crede though. Lots of good nuggets that made me reflect. Reminded me a tiny bit of Naval.
I've been slowly making my way through a course on udemy, in Javascript, focused on DS&A - https://www.udemy.com/course/js-algorithms-and-data-structur.... I've been developing for 10+ years, mainly on Frontend, but it's given me more confidence in how I approach writing code.