Notes on living between the IC and manager tracks — and why I stopped trying to pick one.
Most career ladders ask you to choose. Go deep and stay an individual contributor, or step back and manage. I've spent ten years refusing to — and the in-between has been the most useful place I've stood.
Not a pure IC. Not a pure manager. I sit in between.
On any given week, half my time goes to engineers — pairing, reviewing architecture, unblocking, mentoring — and half goes to clients and stakeholders, where the real constraints live. The two halves aren't separate jobs. Knowing the code makes me a sharper negotiator. Knowing the client makes me a better technical lead.
The cost
It's not free. You're never the deepest engineer in the room or the most polished manager, and you have to be okay with that. The trade is range: I can sit with a junior debugging a race condition in the morning and re-scope a contract by lunch — and both conversations are better for the other.
If you're between tracks and worried you're falling behind on both, you might just be building the rarer thing. Lean in.