Transition from engineer to manager
I work for a very large company and have been a engineer / lead (with the odd year acting up as manager) over last 15 years within infrastructure.
My reputation is lent me to “fall upwards” and get opportunities. I have now found myself managing a team in quite a disorganised and slightly toxic organisation where lines are blurred and chaos is common.
Long story short while I am in leadership meetings and circles I feel respected and listened to , while in tech meetings I am starting to feel shunned. I worry I am and will be becoming less techy (which has felt like a super power for me in my career). I am embracing strategy and also measuring capability performance / what our SLA requires us to do and working on key processes. In other words the management / leadership parts of the job. I am mourning though the “giving up” of the tech part of the job. Had anyone else been in this situation? I have been on both side of the fence and can just tell from tech side the things I am now working on are not respected by the tech people (and that bothers me). Perception of management is that they don’t listen , pen pushers , just in meetings - the gulf between the 2 sides is just enormous
Posted Sep 12, 2026, 2:38 AM UTC