Finding Agency by Quitting Managing
Posted: 2025-09-05
Introduction
The main consequence of switching to individual contributor (IC) after managing a team at Google for five years was more control over how I spend my own time. The effect was larger than I anticipated.
Background: Context
Timeline:
2007-09: I join Google.
2012: The team is created with 2 engineers. I am the Tech Lead.
2018-04: We are now 6 engineers. I start managing the team.
2022-03: We are now 16 engineers. I decide to switch to IC (Senior Staff SWE) and start searching for a manager to take over. While I missed working directly on technology –the ability to focus deeply on few things–, this was a difficult decision. The team was engaged, delivering, and growing. I was happy as a manager:
I was still learning a lot; many of the skills I was learning transfer to many other areas of life (e.g., parenting, organizing big events…). I could see challenges that had been difficult months earlier were becoming easier, less daunting, more tractable. And I was running into bigger challenges (e.g., I was starting to manage managers).
I saw big possitive impact of my work on my peers.
2023-04: We are now 18 engineers, including 3 managers. I transfer all my reports to a new manager.
As managers go, I was fairly technical. I stayed in the IC ladder the whole time.
Agency
I am very satisfied with the outcome. The main advantage, two years in? Much more control over how I spend my time.
Unexpected urgent things reach me less frequently. Managers spend a lot of time putting out fires. A manager dropping balls has large consequences. As a manager, my rough plan for the day would frequently be derailed by a single urgent email that demanded immediate attention.
Managers must be spread thinly, covering many unrelated areas. Among many other things, they must:
- Manage interpersonal relationships of others.
- Negotiate with stakeholders
- Solve tactical day-to-day problems
- Balance budgets
- Deal with people performance
- Hire (and/or deal with attrition)
- Invest in the careers of all their reports
- Solve organizational culture problems
- Keep up with relevant technologies & projects (even if only at a high-level).
Giving full attention to a single opportunity is easier for ICs. As a senior IC, I can still contribute to “management” problems when I can bring significant value; but I can also choose to ignore them, delegating them to their owners, the network of managers I work with.
Obviously, there are limits. Sometimes an escalation comes by that I can’t afford to ignore; or I am asked to review technologies or projects beyond my top priorities.
I anticipated this increased agency when I made this decision (in 2022-03). Among the reasons to switch to IC I wrote:
“I may be able to be more deliberate/intentional in how I spend my energy.”
“My work may be more aligned with what I enjoy: solving technical problems.”
But I think the effect is larger than I expected.
No longer decider
I am no longer the owner/decider of problems such as how many engineers should work on each project; or how to structure teams.
That’s okay. I am lucky to be in a healthy organization that hears me out as it makes these decisions.
Incentives are aligned, so it works out well. My success is the success of managers I work with, and vice versa.
This yields a symbiotic relationship, with each party centered on different aspects: I focus on technology decisions (often shapped by politics/organizational aspects) and defer tactical and organizational challenges (which are complex and critical!) to the strong network of managers I collaborate with.