Switching your career from a software engineer to an engineering manager? Here’s how.

Have you ever thought about switching from a software engineer (SWE) to an engineer manager (EM) but not sure how to get started? As someone who’ve been there, done that, and helped others achieved the same, here are a few thoughts that might be helpful.

Sanity check 1: are you thinking about this switch because you think EMs get paid more than SWEs? If so, please think twice. The fact is that EM’s pay bands are very similar to SWE’s. But more importantly, you won’t really enjoy your time being an EM if money is the major driver.

Sanity check 2: are you still at an early stage of your engineering career? If so, please focus on honing your engineering skills and growing to at least mid-to-senior level SWE first. The reason is simple: you will need to be technically strong in order to lead and support a software engineering team. This normally means you’ll need to be at L5+ in most large companies.

Now, let’s see how to get things started.

First step: let your manager know that you would like to consider the EM role as your next career move. There is zero reason to hide it as your little secret. Remember, a key part of your manager’s job is to grow your career. Let them know at the earliest so that they can watch out for and…