It's been over a decade since I was what is now considered an individual contributor. What that means is it's been a long time since most of my days were focused on coding products and the non-coding practices directly adjacent to coding. I didn't seek out the management track, and some of my other posts have already spoken more in-depth about how I found myself in this area of technical leadership.
This morning, during a weekly one-on-one session with one of my engineers, we discussed her career aspirations. At one point, we discussed whether she was looking to move into management and leadership roles. During the discussion, she started asking me about my background, why I do what I do, and honestly, if I enjoyed it. At one point, she asked, "I don't want to sound insulting, but do you miss technical work?"
My answer to her at the moment is my honest answer. A long time ago, I clicked myself into a mental model where I get more satisfaction from the output of my teams than I would with anything I physically hit the keys on the keyboard to produce. However, I still keep my technical abilities sharp to pitch in when needed.
Interestingly enough, for the rest of today, for 7 hours, I investigated a seemingly bizarre code issue in our codebase. While the day was somewhat frustrating, the problem was not trivial. It was in C#, using and building dynamic expression trees, interfacing with Entity Framework, PostgreSQL (Npgsql), and dynamic query building. The issue was different behavior when doing a "contains" operation on string or nullable string (string?) properties. string properties worked as expected using the case-insensitive ILIKE operation, while string? properties would not.
In the end, several small code changes and some additional and deeper work for runtime type identification or reflection had to be made. I took time to do the deep investigation while my team kept pushing forward on more critical work.
Did I enjoy a day of heads-down, deep-in-the-weeds coding? Yes, yes, I did. Do I wish that most of my days were still doing this? No.
If I want to code or work on new tech or exciting projects, I can always do something on the side, work on a small tool, or do something that's not critical or could block the teams' execution. That's what I do to keep my skills sharp. My job, the things I am paid for, and the things I am expected to execute these days take me away from coding most of the time.
During the one-on-ones, I try to ask specifically, "Are you still enjoying the work here?" Her answer was fantastic. It was a resounding yes; she said this was one of the best places she'd ever been. She loves the work, the quality of work, what she's getting to work on, the team she is a part of, and the broader company.
That is what I find value in or what expresses the value I hope to bring to the companies that employ me. I build teams that do good work and work well together and individuals who love to work with other team members. I don't think she realized just how thankful I am that she shares her feelings.
So, do I still miss technical work? If I'm building and helping to maintain an environment where people feel the way she does, then no, I don't miss it for a day.
