[dejawu]

This is exactly why, as someone who thought I'd be an IC with my head buried in code my whole life, I accepted a role as a tech lead last year. Humans will always need other humans to be human for them. I love working with computers, but supporting, teaching, and mentoring junior engineers has been rewarding for me in ways that writing code never could be. There is no social substitute for concrete relationships with specific people that grow in visible ways. Maybe they can automate away the part of me that's good with logic and reason, but empathy can't be simulated.

[watermelon59]

Were you able to get into that role without the expectation that you’d still be functioning as an IC i.e. holding two jobs at the same time?

I had an awful experience as a lead because the massive mental context switches between leading and doing IC work were unsustainable.