Product Owner, Product Manager can be loads of fun and very creative at the right company - though both can be high stress in the wrong team/company.
Project Management can be fun if you are organised, Programme Manager if you want it to be a more senior role
Business Analyst can be great - and can get pretty senior.
In some companies the step out of programming and into architecture can be a very different pace, but all companies will vary. In my current company it seems full on but at the last it seemed a great role.
Strategy is really important and loads of people and companies do it poorly - great opportunities to do it well! Can be a lot of board papers and socialisation of ideas, but the pace will be very different, and while there can be some stress, will not be consistent.
Obviously ymmv - find a good company that you like and things will be a lot easier. Important jobs don't have to be high stress.
I wouldn't recommend PO or PM roles if you're looking for low stress. That's not to say these roles aren't fulfilling or rewarding, but they come with stress. When things are going well, praise and recognition goes to the teams. When they aren't, you're the head on a spike.
I'd agree that the stress of Product roles varies with company. Dealing with clueless, egotistical executives and HiPPos is never enjoyable.
Organizer for tech conferences [0]. If you operate an event venue as a former engineer the attendees will thank you. You also save on costs because you can self-host most of the tech stack.
The stress turned out to be higher than a 9-5 job though, so think twice :)
I know a person who was a technical customer service manager (for a very technical product) and a general-purpose writer.
She now writes the customer-visible bug-fixed notes for a very large, very technical software product (with minor releases on the order of every 4 weeks, and major releases annually). A good bug takes 5-10 minutes to write up in an appropriate, customer-friendly, legally and security-appropriate way.
A bad bug might take hours of tracking down engineers who did the work, claimed they did the work, mis-tagged the bug entry, improperly closed the bug, improperly left the bug open, improperly merged the bug...
But at the end of the day, she isn't responsible for fixing the bug, just documenting it properly. The workday is essentially 9-5. And there's always another bug.
ljf|3 years ago
Project Management can be fun if you are organised, Programme Manager if you want it to be a more senior role
Business Analyst can be great - and can get pretty senior.
In some companies the step out of programming and into architecture can be a very different pace, but all companies will vary. In my current company it seems full on but at the last it seemed a great role.
Strategy is really important and loads of people and companies do it poorly - great opportunities to do it well! Can be a lot of board papers and socialisation of ideas, but the pace will be very different, and while there can be some stress, will not be consistent.
Obviously ymmv - find a good company that you like and things will be a lot easier. Important jobs don't have to be high stress.
c_o_n_v_e_x|3 years ago
I'd agree that the stress of Product roles varies with company. Dealing with clueless, egotistical executives and HiPPos is never enjoyable.
abnercoimbre|3 years ago
The stress turned out to be higher than a 9-5 job though, so think twice :)
[0] https://handmade-seattle.com
dsr_|3 years ago
She now writes the customer-visible bug-fixed notes for a very large, very technical software product (with minor releases on the order of every 4 weeks, and major releases annually). A good bug takes 5-10 minutes to write up in an appropriate, customer-friendly, legally and security-appropriate way.
A bad bug might take hours of tracking down engineers who did the work, claimed they did the work, mis-tagged the bug entry, improperly closed the bug, improperly left the bug open, improperly merged the bug...
But at the end of the day, she isn't responsible for fixing the bug, just documenting it properly. The workday is essentially 9-5. And there's always another bug.
umeshunni|3 years ago