I've bounced between engineering lead and engineering manager for most of my career. I was an engineering manager (internal IP) at a MSP that got acquired early in the pandemic, and chose to move to another (better-reputation) consultancy that got acquired by the same large multinational in 2019, but didn't get rebadged instantly. I enjoyed being an IC for a year, and managed to grow an account from 0 to 20+ staff in that time, got "promoted" back to management again - found that the company was in complete limbo due to an as-yet-unannounced fold-in to "megacorp" and left.
I've now gone to a basketcase of a smaller company, in a player/coach role - and I'm happier than I've been in a long time.
It wasn't for the money - I took a pay cut. I have more problems than I had at my last role - the key thing for me is I have the latitude again to solve problems.
Whether it's pure technology or people, either way it's a system engineering issue - and the more "fun" the problem - the more fun I've found I have solving it.
I've now gone to a basketcase of a smaller company, in a player/coach role - and I'm happier than I've been in a long time.
It wasn't for the money - I took a pay cut. I have more problems than I had at my last role - the key thing for me is I have the latitude again to solve problems.
Whether it's pure technology or people, either way it's a system engineering issue - and the more "fun" the problem - the more fun I've found I have solving it.