It began with a job change...
Off the the rollercoaster
After working four startup jobs in five years I had seen enough of the end of the runway. I don't enjoy finding new consulting clients and I don't want to work for any Megacorps and the attendant PHBs. After the longest job search of my adult life I landed an awesome gig at a place that does 100% telecommute, makes actual money, and is bootstrapped.
Senior but, not in a geriatric way
I've worked as a programmer at a fair number of places (Startups allow you to work in many enviornments in a short-ish amount of time). I've had managers that were good and some that were bad and some that were middling. Some that micromanaged and some that left me to do the work.
Like all arrogant thoughtworkers I knew I could do it better
Manage that is. I think about systems and processes and like a good little startup hacker I think that hubris is a cardinal virtue. Everytime I ran up against some management quirk I didn't like I thought about how I could do it better. I just didn't want to give up writing code all the time.
Then the expansion happened
We hired our first juinor back-end engineer and suddenly my position as the venerable Lead Back-End Engineer became a management position.
The proof is in the doing
Think of this as an ongoing choose your adventure book. I'm writing my experiences of the transition from Senior Developer to Leading a group of Technical people as it happens. That means no self aggrandizing writing about how it was back then. Hopefully, you can learn something from my experience.