I wanted to take a different spin on offering career advice to software engineers. I thought it could be an interesting exercise to share several big lessons from my ~12 years of managing software engineers and transform those lessons into actionable advice.
The first 8 years of my professional career after university were managing software engineers, but I was also a contributing software engineer myself. It was difficult to balance (especially at a rapidly growing startup), but the experiences from both IC and Management perspectives were very helpful.
I hope you find value in this! TP;DR at the top of the post.
In the small business / startup / consulting world, we do it ALL the time…
IDK how big businesses roll, I stay the hell away from those. I consulted with Meta for six months a few years ago and OMG never again.