The org chart draws it above you, so it reads as the next step. It is not a step. It is a change of profession that happens to come with a pay rise, and the reason so many people are unhappy a year in is that nobody described the job to them before they accepted it.
Look at what changes. Your output stops being anything you make. It becomes what other people manage to do, which means your good days are no longer visible to you. Your feedback loop stretches from an afternoon to a quarter, sometimes a year, and you will spend long stretches unable to tell whether you are any good. The skills you are proudest of become an occasional hobby. And the difficult part of the week is no longer a problem with a right answer. It is two competent people who cannot work together, or telling somebody their work is not at the level, or carrying a decision you disagreed with and cannot explain the whole of.
Some people find that far more interesting than any system. That is a real preference, not a compromise, and if it is yours you should go and do it.
The way to find out is to look at the day rather than the title. Ask three managers you respect what their Tuesday actually consisted of, and what part of the old job they miss. Then take a trial that can be handed back: lead one project end to end, run the team while somebody is on leave, own the graduate intake this year. Six weeks of the real thing tells you more than a year of wondering.
Two facts worth having before you decide. Find out whether your company has a senior technical track that genuinely pays and genuinely has people on it, because if it does not, the choice is being made by the company rather than by you, and that is useful to know. And know that going back is possible, common, and costs you roughly a year of feeling behind.
Choose by which kind of problem you want to be sitting with at six o'clock on a bad Thursday. That is the actual question, and it has no wrong answer.
– Asael Shinder
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