Thanks guys for your replies! It's great to get the full range of opinions.. and I haven't made any progress, because as I read along I'm completely convinced by every single post :D replies in no particular order:
You're worrying about making a decision that isn't even on the table for you. I would let Management know that you are interested in pursuing a Team Lead path - this way you show ambition. Once the opportunity presents itself, you evaluate it then. This way you can truly understand the type of work you'd be doing and what (if any) additional compensation you'd receive. Be sure to really dig into the day-to-day responsibilities, overtime/on-call expectations, etc. And if you don't think you would like that particular opportunity, you can discuss it with leadership at that time.
It's true that it's not on the table right now, but as I said it might happen in the next 2-3 months. I've had the experience that I get what I want when I plant the seed early, so I need to say the right things in casual conversations/travel/friday beers when the topic comes up. But this is based on honesty - I don't think people would appreciate it if I keep dropping hints that I want to do A, and as soon as the opportunity presents itself I want to keep doing B after all. But I think you're right about understanding the type of work - it would be very similar to what my manager is doing now, so I think I'll start paying more attention to what she's doing day-to-day.
Since you have stated "I cannot stress enough how much I enjoy my work (as an individual contributor", i would say stay where you are. Assuming you make enough money as is to reach your goals in a reasonable time frame, selling out and moving into management may not be worth it. You will have to make the call on what your price is to sell out, but by your own description you have what is for the most part a dream job. When you love your work and get paid well for it, that is the dream. Don't sell out unless you have an even bigger dream attached to getting more money.
It is currently my dream job, true, but I've only been here a couple of months. If past experience is any indicator, the job (in my eyes, not because the job itself changes) will move towards "very good" within this year, and towards "yes this is a good job, but..." within two years. Also I definitely don't want to "sell out", that's why I'm asking here - I only want to make the switch if I would likely enjoy it.
Avoid management at all costs. It's the worst. I would only do it if the pay is significantly higher.
Well, yeah, it would be! I think about 30-50% higher, actually. My philosophy on salary is that my priority is working for a good cause in a job I enjoy, but on that basis I want to maximize my salary. For example, I personally would never want to work for a bank (even though it is extremely well paid), but in my line of work I definitely want to earn as much as possible and I'm actively looking for opportunities to do so.
If you're somewhat interested in the management track, I think you should do it. In my experience, if you decline to move into management once, you usually don't get a second chance (in the same organization). If your bosses think you are management material, they see you have the skills and personality to be successful in a leadership role. If you try it and hate it, you can always move back to an independent contribution role at some point.
I think so too, i.e. that if I decline once I can't do it again at the same company. But I was under the impression that it is also hard to move back to an IC role - but so far people seem to say that it'd be easy. That would definitely make it easier to just try and see how I like it.
I'm in academia, and my perspective is that there are many people who can contribute at the defined project problem solving level, some of them better than I can. There are few academics who can also lead and deal with people though, so I think of myself as bringing more value as a manager, which makes me feel better.
I'm not in academia, but we're all PhDs and I sometimes feel the same way, in that I think I would be bringing more value as a manager compared to my peers (and conversely that they could/do bring more value as ICs).
I don't know what your line of work is, but a lot of front line/first step management positions usually involve you busting on people for the lengths of their lunches and breaks. Even if you're a technical expert it's likely that your first gig will involve drone like work of reviewing time cards and crap like that. Personally, I too vote for staying out of it at all costs unless you're coming at it from an MBA angle and the executive suites are your goal.
Nope, not remotely interested in that! But I'm thinking about advancing in my particular company, and there is absolutely nothing like that going on. If anything it borders on too little management (I don't understand how my predecessor was allowed to ruin all those relationships I'm now repairing...).
Do you have any opportunities to "try out" a management position? At my company, it is not uncommon for a manager to not be immediately replaced when they leave/retire. Instead, people who are interested in the position will rotate through for 3-6 months and then a permanent replacement will be selected.
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I would need to be getting a BIG raise to see a really appreciable difference in take-home pay. Our family is also <5 years from FIRE as is, so there's a limit to how much the extra $$ would really cut our FIRE time.
That sounds like a great idea (for the participants at least - but what about those poor people who have a rotating set of inexperienced managers?) but I don't think this will happen. There is not a lot of structure here. That said, any appointment as team leader would surely start as a sort of trial period.
I don't know what counts as a big raise to you, but as I said above it would be 30-50% more, so to me this is very significant even after taxes.
As a supervisor/manager, there are all sorts of BS things to deal with....people calling out sick even though it's crunch time, annual reviews, refereeing disagreements between coworkers who act like children, deflecting the "i deserve a raise" conversations when you know there's no $ in the budget for raises, hunt down laptops that you ordered from IT 5 months prior that still haven't arrived.....
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One way to get around job advancement and raises without having to go into management is to see if they can create tiers. So currently you could be a "Contributor II" and then you could work toward "Contributor III", IV, V, etc.
Ok, your list also doesn't sound appealing at all, except maybe refereeing the disagreements. If a restructure takes place your other point is definitely worth bringing up. As I said I think I would also be happy if I stay an IC under my current boss without being a team leader. I just don't want to get a new boss without having a say in it, and I would also not like reporting to my current coworkers (as I said, I'm competitive...).
At some point you'll find that either a) you don't have enough influence on what you (or your group) is doing, or b) you don't like the idea of working for one of your colleagues or somebody else. A bad supervisor can be a major buzz kill on your happiness.
Reason a is the reason I went into management and I don't mind it at all. I went from being responsible for individual products to being responsible for my group's products. It was weird at first but I'm used to it. I wouldn't go back.
Yeah I'm definitely worried about a) (if b) happens I would probably just look for a new job immediately). But do you feel the same attachment to your group's products as you felt to your individual projects? As I said (in that wall of text..) I'm not sure that I could have the same level of interest in projects that somebody else works on. So I'm wondering if it is different as a team leader, whether you think about your teams projects as your own (but then how do you avoid becoming a micromanager??).
As a manager, you will have to step away from producing technical work and start focusing on your team members. What are their ambitions, what are they good at, what does your project need? Can you channel ambitions and skills into the needs of your projects? If not, who on your team can you train to get the needed skills or who can you hire? You will wake up asking yourself "is my team motivated and engaged?" If so, what is working well? If not, what are you going to do about it. These are the kind of problems that you should really enjoy if you are to succeed into management. The good news is that engaging in this career path is a completely reversible decision and that you can get back to an IC position if the team lead role does not work for you.
I *think* I would enjoy this. This was actually the best part of horrible intern. He wasn't a bad person, he was just incredibly unsuited (or unwilling, or on drugs - we never figured it out) for working. He had an even worse relationship with my boss, so I tried being a mediator and getting both to see the different viewpoints. I wasn't particularly successful, but I did prevent intern from giving boss "honest feedback" and some sort of precarious peace was achieved. So that was kind of fun, but I don't know if I would enjoy that on an ongoing basis (or waking up at night for that..??).
It also seems like these kinds of considerations take place after hours, because work time is booked with, well, work, and meetings.
So, general takeaway for me so far is:
* make sure what the actual, daily tasks would be in my company, and whether I would enjoy them (no time sheet tracking for me)
* everybody agrees that dipping a toe into management is reversible (I'm quite surprised by that actually, so far I've only heard the opposite)
* see if an IC career track could be implemented with the restructure
Thanks folks! More opinions still welcome of course :)