My Return to Programming
I’ve had a few years off of programming. 7 years, to be exact. In that time, I haven’t escaped programming. I was a scrum master, and then an Engineering Manager for 5 years, and a software leadership consultant for another year, with at least another year vetting engineers for a global software consultancy.
But I actively avoided diving into the code since 2018. For one, I truly believed that a good servant leader pulls themselves away from the daily delivery in order to allow the developers to grow their skills in the direction needed, without limitations and prejudices from their manager. I still believe this is paramount to quality software development leadership.
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I also recognized, however, that my extensive absence from programming kept me from displaying my expertise within the software field. While I could gather and synthesize best practices regarding typescript and functional programming, without spending time arguing with VS Code and Git, I was missing some deeper connection to the developers I was serving.
I also recently received some great advice to focus on the parts of my career that I was incredibly successful at. I was always great at programming. While my ADHD ended up in the way, often, of feeling successful, I regularly, and quickly, moved up the software ranks.
While I whole-heartedly believe my leadership approach was a more human-centric, growth-centered model, it often conflicted with upper management’s tendencies for command-and-control style expectations. And I lacked the self-assurance, and executive function, to create compelling arguments that continued to propel my career with the same velocity that software development moved.
So I am returning to my roots of software development — either to use this journey to advance my understanding and alignment to a wider set of software engineering manager positions, or to return to becoming a individual contributor on a team (whether as a dev, or as a scrum master). I’ll use this space to talk about this journey.
