Luxury of going back to school

In this post, I will be talking about my experience of stepping down a role in the career ladder to be able to re-live the fun (Problem-solving).

I’ve been blessed enough to have worked for two corporate organizations, and two startups where I was the initial employee and in my second shot I got to lead a team of 4 engineers at the age of 27. Although, I do believe that age is just a number. However, the point I wish to bring your focus on is that it’s not necessary for everyone to be enjoying a higher role. No disrespect to the ones who are leading teams of any size. I’m only trying to put my own experience here when I started performing the job of a team lead.

I was really turning disinterested to slowly stop solving issues/bugs and start delegating and get serious about projects milestones. I care about the product. However at this stage of life, I really enjoy creating them instead of taking care of them. I do believe it is necessary for any creator to maintain the code-bases they once wrote in smaller team sizes.

In my defense, the code-bases I got to write weren’t perfect yet they were written with a lot of consideration and keeping robustness, scalability, and quality in mind. The problem arises when a product based company becomes stable and under a well-drafted process.

When the major contributors are made the leads it instantly becomes a choice for them to either lead a team that takes the seed way ahead in scalability or to find more problems to solve.

When I was given a chance to lead a team, in my opinion, I did perform the job of satisfying the milestones of the project and getting things done of around 6 months. Where I started noticing that I wasn’t really enjoying my work and found myself disinterested in leadership. Rather, used to wait for other engineers to come up to me with interesting problems to solve.

With time, my team became independent, Since, I was mentored by my mentor to become self-sufficient and independent in problem finding and solving. That’s all I had to replicate within my team.

One fine day my friend noticed me sitting in the corner discreetly when he asked what’s wrong with you? To which I had no answer. Since I was under the impression that leading a team was the-next-step for me in my career.

To which he instantly replied saying Ashish find some other job. A request I instantly rejected. The feeling of fun was still missing and when I came back home met my friend over the weekend where he instantly, suggested me to meet some folks from a company he worked with on some cool project lately.

When your inner circle notices something and brings it in front of you, time to self introspect.

It was a surprise recommendation that came in through my friend while I was driving him back home. It was interesting how in a split second I replied to him “tell me more”.

From there on I got into interviews with 3 companies and got selected for 2 after rejecting one which I couldn’t find to be the perfect fit for me.

Then I was asked this amazing question by the recruiter why do you want to join us as a senior software engineer as you’ve been leading a team at your current organization. To which my answer was simple. I feel I am too young for it. I deserve to get more experience and need to learn from people much better than me which I believe your company can provide me.

That was my transition from a Team lead to a Senior Software Engineer. I’m not saying leadership isn’t my thing. All I’m trying to say is that there’s always a way to get back on what you really love doing and If you really think there’s more for you to learn, never regret letting go an opportunity coming early at your doorstep.

If you wish to read something similar about management:

17 REASONS NOT TO BE A MANAGER https://charity.wtf/2019/09/08/reasons-not-to-be-a-manager/