Do you lose your technical skills once you're an IT manager, team lead for a group of developers, or CTO for too long?

#career #coding

Top comments (9)

Heiko Kanzler 🇪🇺 • May 21 '20

Your skills are changing, as your role has changed.

Panda Quests • May 21 '20

Also can't you learn these skills being a developer?

Panda Quests • May 21 '20

What do you think of going back to a developer role? Will you then be a better or worse developer?

Deepak Choudhary • May 21 '20 • Edited

I guess you will now be a better developer in terms of taking on more things and having a more holistic approach towards the product you would develop. You would now not just be waiting for requirements to come in but would suggest modifications to not just functionalities of the application but also the improvements in supporting roles, like CI/CD pipeline, cost estimations etc. I guess it depends on your definition of what a "good developer" is really.

*EDIT *: Above is again an assumption I am making keeping myself in the scenario you provided and how it would change things for me.

Panda Quests • May 21 '20

Would you always recommend a developer to take on the management role (it manager, team lead, or CTO) if he got the opportunity to do so?

Deepak Choudhary • May 21 '20

It depends on what appeals to you as a person I guess. Being a CTO, architect, etc in an organization definitely gives your opinion more weightage in comparison to a junior developer due to the hierarchy that exists. You will be in a position to make a greater impact in a managerial role. So if that is what appeals to you then go for it. If you're not wanting to be in an organization, want to be the lone wolf, do freelance, write blogs, do podcasts, come out with tutorials, etc then just go crazy my dude :D The world is yours for the taking when you're your own boss :P

P.S. A life lesson: Beauty lies in the little details. Black and white are perfectly good regions on their own but life's a lot more interesting in the grey areas. :)