For me it was something I fell into. I took on more responsibility and became the de-facto team lead over time and then ultimately transitioned across. I can't tell you when the developer/manager switch happened as I always had a foot in both sides until very recently. I always saw it as a far away transition but the timing and circumstances means it all worked out well for me.
I was lucky to have had a good mentor who supported me. If you're lucky enough to be able to lean on someone, I would recommend you take advantage of that. I like to think that I did the same to help my eventual replacement and I plan to do that going forward. A key thing I've thought about a lot of the past few years is purposely making yourself replaceable:
I totally agree with the point about building a high performing team, but that's not always an achievable goal. It certainly wasn't possible in my last role and the makeup of the team wasn't really geared towards that way of working. I couldn't hire so we tried different approaches. First we gamified our development and release processes which helped to improve quality. It's not the right approach for everyone, but for us it worked well. There was no reward or even a concept of being the best. It was all fairly informal, but it meant we had data when discussing team performance and the visibility of another person's struggles was visible to the whole team a lot quicker. Back when we were in the office, we even had a screen with our dashboard up so anyone could see how we were getting on. Again, not for everyone, but for us it worked.
We also had a close working relationship with the support and onboarding teams which meant we really appreciated what customers wanted. Expectations were easier to manage. We worked together rather than battling over who's fault it was.
Anyway, I'm sure there are lots of different ways in which people fall into these roles. I really appreciate the perspective shared here and thought I'd share mine too!
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For me it was something I fell into. I took on more responsibility and became the de-facto team lead over time and then ultimately transitioned across. I can't tell you when the developer/manager switch happened as I always had a foot in both sides until very recently. I always saw it as a far away transition but the timing and circumstances means it all worked out well for me.
I was lucky to have had a good mentor who supported me. If you're lucky enough to be able to lean on someone, I would recommend you take advantage of that. I like to think that I did the same to help my eventual replacement and I plan to do that going forward. A key thing I've thought about a lot of the past few years is purposely making yourself replaceable:
Why you should make yourself replaceable
Charanjit Chana ・ Nov 14 '20 ・ 1 min read
I totally agree with the point about building a high performing team, but that's not always an achievable goal. It certainly wasn't possible in my last role and the makeup of the team wasn't really geared towards that way of working. I couldn't hire so we tried different approaches. First we gamified our development and release processes which helped to improve quality. It's not the right approach for everyone, but for us it worked well. There was no reward or even a concept of being the best. It was all fairly informal, but it meant we had data when discussing team performance and the visibility of another person's struggles was visible to the whole team a lot quicker. Back when we were in the office, we even had a screen with our dashboard up so anyone could see how we were getting on. Again, not for everyone, but for us it worked.
We also had a close working relationship with the support and onboarding teams which meant we really appreciated what customers wanted. Expectations were easier to manage. We worked together rather than battling over who's fault it was.
Anyway, I'm sure there are lots of different ways in which people fall into these roles. I really appreciate the perspective shared here and thought I'd share mine too!