The trigger
You don’t decide to become a manager the way you pick a new framework.
For me, it was a mix of things. An opportunity, a latent desire. I’ve always liked understanding the why behind things.
- Why are we building this feature?
- For whom?
- What problem are we actually solving?
That curiosity naturally pulled me out of the code. Into conversations with clients, with business teams. Helping them articulate what they really wanted.
Looking back, I was already a bit of a manager without the title.
Until the day the title came.
The tipping point
There’s a precise moment when I realized I wasn’t a developer anymore.
A week like any other. I look at my calendar: over 20 hours of meetings. The next week, same thing. And the one after that.
No “coding time” scheduled. No tickets. Just syncs, check-ins, 1:1s, alignments…
The keyboard was still there. But it was mostly used for taking notes.
It’s hard
Becoming the manager of the team you were already part of.
Those same people you were debating patterns with the day before — you now have to “manage” them. And some of them are stronger technically than you. You know it. They know it.
Impostor syndrome hit me square in the face.
How did I get through it? By listening. A lot. By leaning on those people rather than trying to prove anything.
And above all, by accepting something obvious: these are two different jobs.
It’s not my role to be the strongest technically. I’m there to enable the team. Period.
It’s tricky
My biggest mistake as a new manager? Being the buddy manager.
When you come from the team, the temptation is enormous. Change nothing. Stay “one of them.” Don’t assert yourself too much so you don’t ruffle any feathers.
Except it doesn’t work.
You have to learn to make calls. To say no to something you know is pointless. To make decisions that won’t be popular.
And it’s not just with the team. As you move up, you also have to make yourself heard by the people above you. Challenge, argue, defend.
Kindness doesn’t mean the absence of courage.
It’s sneaky
There’s one reflex I still fight: “solver” mode.
I know some of my team’s projects inside and out. Sometimes too well. And when a problem comes up, my first impulse is to get my hands in it. Fix it. Debug it. Ship it.
The problem is, that’s not my job anymore.
My job is to help people grow. Not to do it for them.
Every time I “solve,” I miss a chance to help them level up. And I send them a pretty lousy signal.
It’s a constant battle. Some days, I lose.
It’s paradoxical
The thing I miss most since I left daily development? Coding.
The thing I don’t miss? Coding all day.
It’s the exact same answer. And that’s exactly the point.
The flow of development, the satisfaction of seeing something work… I miss that.
But full days in the code, disconnected from everything else, implementing vague specs without questioning them… that, no.
You can only understand that duality by living it.
It’s a journey
Do I feel like I’m “in the right place” today?
Honestly, I don’t know. I still feel like I have a lot to learn. Long-term vision, coaching, the art of asking the right questions…
Maybe that’s normal. Maybe the day you feel like you’ve “arrived” is the day you stop growing.
To those thinking about making the leap
If a senior dev came to me tomorrow and said “I’m thinking about going into management,” here’s what I’d tell them:
Go for it.
But I’d also warn them.
The sense of responsibility changes a lot of things. The mindset shifts. The involvement too. The calendar, even more.
You can no longer “hide” behind well-written code. Your impact becomes more diffuse, slower to materialize.
And paradoxically, that’s also what makes the job fascinating.
I had the chance to support a senior dev transitioning into a lead role last year.
It’s one of the deepest satisfactions this job has to offer.
So yes, the day I stopped coding, I lost something. But I found something else.
Different. Maybe bigger.
Well, most of the time 🙈