I joined on as one of the early employees at a startup a couple years ago. I liked the idea, had previously worked with one of the founders and took the lead developer role. Things have gone well, the development team has expanded, hiring a few really talented devs and many other quality contributors and along the way a VP of Engineering who is far better at the people-oriented parts of running and building a dev team.
As those people have come up to speed and the product solidified I've handled off more and more and now find myself mostly stepping back from development. I'm still in discussions about technical plans, but now I'm also spending time in conversations with PMs about new products/directions, timelines and planning of feature rollouts, and being brought into larger sales deals/partnerships as a bridge to the technology side of the house, speaking on behalf of the company at various events, serving as brand expert, and mentoring up younger devs.
Part of me feels like I've been put out to pasture, but the larger part seems that I've fallen into quite a great opportunity for growth and a perfect opportunity to train up for a CTO/technical founder type position in the future, and maybe just a bit of "reward" for being an early employee that went all in with the founders. I'm doing less, sleeping more and easier, cognitive load has been nicely reduced and creativity/ideas are flowing as well as ever.
Things are good, but I can't help but feel a little strange for not being more directly involved with development.
Foreground:
For those of you who have made a similar transition, how did you handle it?
Did you do anything to scratch the itch or did it just go away over time?
Do you worry about losing anything?
How did you adjust to a role with much less direct "proof of work" but not in a management role?
I joined on as one of the early employees at a startup a couple years ago. I liked the idea, had previously worked with one of the founders and took the lead developer role. Things have gone well, the development team has expanded, hiring a few really talented devs and many other quality contributors and along the way a VP of Engineering who is far better at the people-oriented parts of running and building a dev team.
As those people have come up to speed and the product solidified I've handled off more and more and now find myself mostly stepping back from development. I'm still in discussions about technical plans, but now I'm also spending time in conversations with PMs about new products/directions, timelines and planning of feature rollouts, and being brought into larger sales deals/partnerships as a bridge to the technology side of the house, speaking on behalf of the company at various events, serving as brand expert, and mentoring up younger devs.
Part of me feels like I've been put out to pasture, but the larger part seems that I've fallen into quite a great opportunity for growth and a perfect opportunity to train up for a CTO/technical founder type position in the future, and maybe just a bit of "reward" for being an early employee that went all in with the founders. I'm doing less, sleeping more and easier, cognitive load has been nicely reduced and creativity/ideas are flowing as well as ever.
Things are good, but I can't help but feel a little strange for not being more directly involved with development.
Foreground:
For those of you who have made a similar transition, how did you handle it? Did you do anything to scratch the itch or did it just go away over time? Do you worry about losing anything? How did you adjust to a role with much less direct "proof of work" but not in a management role?