Can a Manager Stay Technical?

[deanwebb]

This is a question lots of people who want to keep up on technology wonder. What happens to tech skills if one becomes a manager?

Short answer: they are no longer prioritized.

Week one of my role as a manager and already, I'm starting to live in different places than I did before in my daily routines. More time in Salesforce, approving timecards, resolving issues of communication and inter-department conflicts... I did about 30 mins of tech work yesterday, and it was all documentation. Everything else I did was coordinating stuff and putting puzzle pieces into place. Going forward, I'll have a chance to keep informed about new things, but I'm probably not going to have a lot of details to go with that, unless I make tech work my hobby after doing manager work.

At the same time, I *need* to keep up with developments so that I'm able to articulate what my team needs, whether it's in writing a spec for a job req or if it's getting better resources for the team to do their jobs.

[icecream-guy]

if you are a working manager, than yes,  otherwise you have turned into a consultant.   you delegate tasks to your team, and when they get stuck, they come to you for technical advice.

[heath]

I'm facing the same issue.  I was the "Network Administrator."  Two months ago I was made the "Director of Technical Services / Network Administrator." 

I haven't done any network administration in 2 months. 

[deanwebb]

I am going to be helping my team to find resources and to put together documentation and trainings for them, but my days of hands-on are going to diminish and wane. This won't be a 50-50 role. Honestly, a 50-50 role never truly works out, it'll become 100% of your time on one and a new hobby to take up your spare time for the other.

[wintermute000]

You'll still be effective technically for around 2-3 years and then after that you will be one the sales guys call The Technical Manager. Its just the way of things, at least hey your guys won't have to explain stuff to you.

FFS even going from technical consulting --> principal --> solutions / pre-sales I am already losing my hands-on skills, doing the odd lab/PoC is nothing like being on the tools full time. I'm actually learning to let go and not bother debugging the nuts and bolts because you know what, it isn't my jerb anymore, and frankly i would have no time to even sleep if I had to cover all the technologies and scenarios I have to cover to the same level as when I was the one on the tools. So you let go, take the doco at face value and trust in others to do their jobs (and as a manager its your job to multiply their effectiveness.... thankfully not my job lol).

What's there not to like, I mean you DO have people skills right, and you take the specs from the customers amirite

[deanwebb]

I do indeed take the specs from the customers to the engineers!

[deanwebb]

Collaborating on supporting technical documentation does help to keep chops in line. And it helps my team, so win-win. In that respect, the management role is a support position, not a supervisory one.