How to retrain from a developer to a manager?

Question

Career in IT

Hello colleagues!
Probably every developer wonders about further career development and in the end there comes a moment when you no longer want to write code, but want to develop social skills more, negotiate, solve problems at a higher level, delve into the needs of business and customers, manage a project and the development team. As they say: "The soldier who does not dream of becoming a general is bad!"
Right off the bat, there are 2 ways to move to the next step in the career ladder:
1. Increase your authority in the team and wait for your leader to be promoted and a place vacated.
The disadvantages are that with a small staff turnover, you can wait a very long time, since IT managers are young, they are not going to retire, and they rarely change jobs. In addition, there is always competition for this place in the team and another person can be appointed.
2. Go to interviews and sell yourself.
And here is the main question: what knowledge do you need to get before going to such an interview? What are the most valuable qualities? Maybe there are some useful courses or articles on this topic.
I will be glad to your answers!

Answer 1

Take the initiative, take responsibility, and everything will work out. To begin with, you can try to take an intern and set tasks for him - discuss with the management.
How to herd cats. A guide for programmers supervising other programmers.

Even if you were a brilliant and disciplined programmer a month ago and suddenly found yourself in the role of a manager, you hardly know where to start, what leadership style to choose, how to hire and fire employees, hold meetings, and achieve timely completion of tasks. In that case, you can't do without this book.

Answer 2

First of all, it is important for a manager to understand people. Everything they say, what they don't say. Accurately capture intonation, body language. Understand their motives.
Equally important is the ability to persuade. In many ways - negotiating, intimidating, manipulating tender feelings, anything. Separately, I will highlight the skills related to this item, competent speech, set voice and the ability to properly behave.
These skills are best developed not in a sterile corporate environment with a standardized culture of behavior, but in everyday life. Make your 6-year-old nephew stop messing around, make your neighbor's snob stop smoking in the stairwell, forbid your girlfriend PMS and the phrase "Nothing happened!" and "Mommy said..."
It is extremely useful to have a good memory and be able to plan, including long-term. And here again, daily household experience is useful. Develop a clear daily routine for yourself, plan a budget, play chess, weave intrigues.
Having a base of necessary skills, you can proceed to the theory. First, IT service management theories - ISO 20000, ITIL, PMBoK and Agile. Secondly, it is very valuable to know the applied area - for example, the business processes of retail and wholesale sales, the basics of accounting, including accounting, the main laws governing activities, and so on. Business literature and books on personal growth immediately in the trash. It’s not that they didn’t meet anything good, but extremely rare and very few.
Finally, it is not necessary to wait until the leader vacates the seat. If a manager has really matured in you, you can sit him down.

Answer 3

but I want to develop social skills more, negotiate, solve problems at a higher level

Don't you find a contradiction here?
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And here is the main question: what knowledge do you need to get before going to such an interview? What are the most valuable qualities? Maybe there are some useful courses or articles on this topic.
Judging by the formulation of the question - you need something from the series "How to increase self-confidence"

Answer 4

A developer, doing development, will never be able to grow into a project manager.
These are DIFFERENT positions and different careers.
1) intern developer - junior developer - developer - senior developer. Possibly a team leader. Possibly an architect.
2) Manager - a manager with management experience. Possibly a project manager. Perhaps a software manager (anything can be here). Perhaps your own business.
If a developer wants to become a manager, he should study to be a manager, not "Achieve authority from the team until the position of the boss becomes available."

Answer 5

The fastest way... come up with your own project, register an LLC and lead it, put the project on a commercial footing...

Answer 6

You must be able to go over the heads without hesitation. Then you move on. Half of the team will consider you a freak.

Answer 7

For the IT sector, it is important to understand what knowledge everyone has, what is interesting to him and in terms of skill level. Knowing this, it is correct to distribute tasks between subordinates so that it is interesting and efficiently completed. Then you will not be an Eccentric who seized power, but the "soul of the company."
P.S.
A person who knows how to follow orders can give them effectively!
A leader often needs to simply not interfere with the work of others.

Answer 8

I'll ask you a question that may seem silly to you at first :)
Do you like to play computer games related to team management? Divinity: Original Sin, XCOM (any, original 90s, 2013) and the like? Do you like to play these kind of games?
Of course, leaders are not born. But if you don’t have this inclination to “combat control”, if you want to decide everything yourself, you can turn out to be a fig leader, even if by the will of Heaven you become one :)

Answer 9

and in the end there comes a moment when you no longer want to write code

Apparently they just chose the wrong profession.
A manager (manager) and a programmer are completely different professions. It's a completely different set of knowledge. Fundamentally different.
Perhaps you mean team lead? Then this is a slightly different case, this is not a manager, but rather the most intelligent and authoritative developer. But he writes a lot of code. He has other responsibilities, but I can't imagine a team lead without a code. What for? Then it is easier and cheaper to find a manager.
You need to have knowledge and charisma more than the rest of the team. And you have to love your job.

Answer 10

All of the above is in place. We have a large company and in 10 years I have never seen a developer become a good manager, these are parallel universes.
As an option, you can try to freelance, here both communications and planning will be pumped, well, or it will simply become clear that this is not for you.

Answer 11

Probably every developer wonders about further development in their career and in the end there comes a moment when you no longer want to write code

Who cares, who cares.
At one time I was "guided" by freelancers - well, what the hell. Writing technical specifications, monitoring execution, checking the result ... and chatter-chat-chat. I'm better in silence, I'll write code without talking to anyone :)