Returning to the IC track in the age of AI

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Key takeaways:

• A third of engineering managers are considering returning to IC work.
• The EM role has changed: more compressed, more expected, no consistent definition.
• Demand favors ICs with judgment plus AI fluency. Pick which seat you navigate the shift from.

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After a couple of years of being an engineering manager (EM), I recently found myself in the position of having to look for a new role. My first instinct was to look for positions similar to what I had been doing before.

I spent time preparing for EM interviews and even went through a few interview loops. In tandem, I was also building side projects, learning and leveraging new AI tools I hadn’t had the time to dive deep into before, and contributing to an open-source project. I was spending more time coding than I ever did as a manager, and I was having a lot of fun doing it.

After a few months of building for fun and sharpening my AI skills, I realized how much I missed the hands-on work and the opportunity to go deep on solving a problem. Through all of my interview loops, I began to see that I still had plenty of technical growth left to do as an engineer, especially with how quickly AI tooling was changing.

All of this got me thinking – did I actually want to pursue an EM role, or did I actually want to return to the individual contributor (IC) track instead?

I’m certainly not alone in asking these questions. In fact, in the most recent LeadDev Engineering Leadership Report, one third of engineering leaders with management roles were considering returning to IC roles. If you’ve been grappling with the decision of whether or not to return to an IC role, here are some reasons to consider making the leap. 

Sharpen your technical skills

One of the biggest reasons I decided to return to the IC track was because I identified a gap in my own technical skillset. 

While it’s crucial to stay technical as an EM, there is a limit to the types of problems you can solve and how deep you can go. As an EM, you’re juggling many different tasks – investing in honing and refining your technical skills is just one of them, and it’s likely something you can chip away at based on how much capacity you have at any given time. 

While you may be able to carve out chunks of focus time if you feel that you are drifting too far from the code, you still have to balance that with conducting 1:1s, handling performance reviews, providing technical feedback, and leading the planning of work, among other things.

During the two years I spent as an EM, I developed many new skills, but most of them weren’t technical. While I watched (and even helped coach) other engineers grow by leaps and bounds in their career, as a manager, I wasn’t spending the majority of my workday actually solving the hard problems in the critical path.

Instead, I was shaping the conditions to help my team do their best work. The more that I reflected on how I had spent my time as a manager, the more I found myself wanting to reinvest in my own technical growth. 

Choose the problems you want to solve

Another major consideration is the fact that the EM role is changing. The coordination layer that was previously owned by managers has been compressed, while expectations of the job are rising.

The EM of today is not the same as the one from three years ago. To complicate matters, different companies have different expectations for their managers, with some expecting leaders who build, while others who demand leaders take on more scope, reports, and teams.

The question, then, is what kinds of problems do you want to be solving, and how does that fit into your long-term career goals? For example, if you want to stay close to the code but your organization wants you to take on more reports and more teams, you may find your personal desires at odds with the expectations of your company.

Similarly, if you are currently trying to balance managing and building and find yourself disproportionately excited by building and unenthused by your management tasks, that’s a good sign that you might benefit from a reset and refresh by spending a year or two on the IC track. 

For me personally, I realized that I had been burned out by management work. I realized that I missed being in the code every day, and that the problems that I most wanted to spend my time on (at least in the short-term) weren’t management ones.

Industry-wide changes

Finally, there are economic shifts in the industry that will likely influence your decision on whether or not to return to IC work.

The tech industry today looks strikingly different than it did just a few years ago. Layoffs and restructurings are commonplace. Every day, more and more experienced and highly-qualified engineers are entering the market.

At the same time, the roles that companies are trying to fill are different than before – organizations are flattening, and the manager headcount is decreasing as a result. For the management roles that remain, the responsibilities of the position have changed over the course of just the past year.

The economics of software development have also completely transformed. Generating code is cheaper and easier than ever before.

Simultaneously, there is an increased demand for ICs with strong technical judgment, a deep understanding of the fundamentals, and a rigor and respect for engineering discipline. An engineer with that exact skillset is a powerhouse when coupled with AI tooling.

So where does that leave EMs? Ultimately, we each have a choice to make: we have to decide whether we want to navigate these changes from the manager’s seat or the engineering one. The answer to that question will be a very personal and nuanced one. 

For example, if you have less than a year of management experience, you may find it hard to land a new EM role in the current market (and you will likely be competing with other managers with three, four, or even five years more experience than you if you do).

On the other hand, if you have many years of management experience and want to get more familiar with AI technologies, but don’t have the bandwidth or capacity to do so in your current role, then jumping over to the IC track may actually be a lot more fulfilling than continuing to try to climb the management ladder.

In my case, I decided that investing in building strong technical skills and cultivating a deep fluency and understanding of AI tooling in a production codebase at scale in the short-term would end up paying dividends long-term, even if I end up moving back to management a few years from now. 

No matter whether you decide to stay a manager or make the leap back to the IC world, one thing is for certain: you should make sure that, whatever you decide, you are doing it for the right reasons. In this market in particular, returning to the IC track should be a deliberate move that you have considered carefully.

The IC track in the age of AI

As you think about the right next move for your career, consider what your personal goals are, and what you need to do in order to support them so that you can flourish. It’s worth asking yourself which skills, if any, have atrophied, and whether you want to reinvest in them.

Think about how you would like to be spending your time currently, and whether your current role allows you to do more of what you wish you could be doing.

Finally, take into account the unique moment that our industry is in – with many things changing all at once – and what you need to do in order to invest in the longevity of your career.

Remember that your capacity and time is finite. If returning to the IC track is something that excites and energizes you in this moment, then I encourage you to follow that instinct and see where it leads! 

If you’re nervous, don’t forget: you can always try your hand at management again down the road in your career. In fact, sometimes swinging back on the engineer/manager pendulum is one of the best things you can do in your career, even if you don’t realize it until much later.

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