Ask HN: Should I return to a IC dev role after my experience in management?
Backstory: I was a senior software engineer at our company and was offered a development manager role in another team. The team was known to be in an unhealthy state, and the project has a lot of eyes on it. I've been a manager now for about 3 years. It's been a stressful journey. I think I've grown a lot in this time, but my motivation is really low. 1:1's, setting goals, and mentoring direct reports was a fun new thing when I started, but I have very little drive to do this long term. I do find motivation in improving our system and our processes, which is why I originally wanted to get into a leadership role. I am rarely coding now as I'm generally stretched thin helping on many tasks at once, and of course in a few meetings.
One note, my current role hasn't given me much more influence the direction of our company or the products we make. In the rare times I'm involved in these discussions, I do get motivated.
Given the situation, I'm considering switching back to a development role. I have learned that in a healthy team I could have more far reaching influence on systems and processes without being in a manager role. I'm hesitant to do so because it feels like I'm giving up on my career aspirations I had in mind. Also, I'm not sure if I'm not happy with this specific role I'm in, or if the actual dev manager role isn't for me.
Do you think moving back to a development role will make me less marketable to become a manager later in my career?
I'm curious if others have had this conundrum I'm in and how they handled it.