Background: I'm currently a Product Manager at a small (~120 employees) software company and I lead a large piece of our product. My team is a 6 devs with a Tech Lead running a tight sprint schedule.
I'm 27 and about 4.5 years out of college where I graduated with an Information Systems major - codeword for "doesn't know how to code, but can talk to people, so stick him in Project Management". In college I did a couple of classes in programming - I've coded in Javascript, PHP, and Visual Basic in the past, but beyond some of the basics I've all but forgotten everything. My experience in the workplace so far has been in everything from Business Analysis to Project Management, then into Operations to Program Management, and finally I've fallen into Product Management where I'm learning a lot and really enjoy it so far.
I live in Chicago and make just over $80k a year, saving 50%, blah blah. I've gotten to the point where I'm happy with my finances, this is more of a career question. This isn't really a money thing in the short-term, but long term I'd love to start my own software company in the near future as I explain below.
So why bother to learn programming?
Frankly, I don't like putting "I'm really good with working alongside developers" is exactly a great skill. Sure, it IS a skill, but it's not exactly a skill I could go off and freelance with. Ultimately I feel like I've only managed and led and never really produced. Someday I would love to go my own way and build something myself or with a team of developers - who knows, maybe I build the prototype with the shitty code and technical solutions and they scale it. At least THAT is producing something - taking an idea, putting it into form, and then leading other people to build it the right way. Plus, programming seems like a lot of fun, and something I could be good at.
I've been toying with this idea since the day I graduated from college, I've just never really had the time to sit down and devote myself to learning it. With a full time job, a lot of hobbies, a girlfriend, etc - doesn't leave a ton of room for learning new skills at work that don't already fit with what I'm doing. I also see this move as potentially ass backwards - a lot of programmers I know aspire to be project or product managers so they are out of the programming aspect - why go "backwards"? I sometimes feel like I should have started with programming in college and made my way upwards in that path, but I can't change the past at this point.
My question is this: based on this information, does putting a couple thousand hours into learning programming make sense? Or should I just keep running with what I've been doing? Ultimately, my career is on a nice trajectory, but learning programming could really be the game-changer. That being said, it IS a huge opportunity cost - I'd potentially do less of other things I'd like to do, like rock climbing, tennis, and learning an instrument.
Any thoughts? Thanks for reading, I really appreciate all responses.