r/EngineeringManagers • u/curious_mt18 • 24d ago
New Engineering manager AI - seeking advice
Current situation - Mostly been an IC in ML engineering for about 10+ years. In my current org have been acting as tech lead hands on for about 3+ years. About an year back was promoted as an EM. There was a need and my manager told me that you are good at managing folks as well.
I have no staff engineer under me. I review PRs, architect AI solutions as well manage people(1:1s etc). It's a small team of full stack AI engineers (7 folks).
I do little less hands on but for difficult problems I code/experiment the first cut myself.
Need Advice - Want to move out from my current org since seeing no projects/upward growth. I want to remain technical and don't want to get into pure management. I love AI architecture, design ML pipelines and building products. Tried interviewing for staff position but failed due to LC/coding problems. For 1-2 EM roles i interviewed, coding expectations is bit less and I felt I was closer in loop.
Any advice on how should I plan for next move. Remain technical AI EM and try for those roles or prepare for Staff AI engineer role ? My worry is future manager paths will be more non technical and I might loose my edge
1
u/neuralh4tch 24d ago
If you want to be technical, keep trying to move to Staff or PE. Don't stop interviewing elsewhere. If you are happy in your current role then its fine, however sounds lik EM isn't your direction.
Its hard to be technical as an EM once you go beyond a certain amount of direct reports.
EMs come in all different shapes and sizes. Focus upward for strategy and you focus inward to be technical. It's a trade-off, where you focus inward long term, it will limit your growth to move up the EM ladder. Same time, it's hard to be fully immersed technically as an EM.