From Developer to Senior Manager: Debugging My Career Path

As a developer, life was simple. Write code, fix bugs, deploy. Rinse and repeat. But somewhere along the way, I leveled up—not in a video game sense (although I wish)—but to something called a “senior manager with developer responsibilities.” Let me walk you through my journey from debugging code to, well… debugging humans.

Stage 1: Developer Life – All Code, All Day

Back in the good ol’ days, I was living and breathing code. My world was filled with Tailwind CSS, Alpine.js, Vue.js, Laravel—you name it. If there was an acronym, I probably worked with it.

Every day I was building features like:

1public function buildCoolFeature()
2{
3    // Logic here to make users happy
4    return success();
5}

I didn’t care much about meetings or management; just give me a coffee, and I could ship code like nobody’s business. Life was good!

But then… things started to change.

Stage 2: My First Intern – The Mentor Awakens

The real turning point came when I was asked to mentor an intern. Intern? Like, you want me to explain what I do… to someone else? Oh boy. But I took the challenge head-on and suddenly found myself explaining complex code like:

1// What I told my intern:
2$coffee = makeCoffee();
3 
4// What they heard:
5💡☕️🤯

Surprisingly, mentoring wasn’t so bad. I mean, yeah, it was like teaching a toddler to code at times, but seeing them grow into actual developers made me feel like a proud parent. The debugging sessions were goldmines of life lessons… and occasional disasters.

Stage 3: The Promotion – More Responsibilities, More Coffee

Then one day, they threw the big title at me: Senior Manager with Developer Responsibilities. Suddenly, I wasn’t just responsible for my own code anymore. Nope, now I had to manage other people’s code. Yikes!

Meetings started creeping into my calendar like unexpected bugs in production:

1// Old daily schedule:
2$tasks = [ 'coding', 'debugging', 'fixing things' ];
3 
4// New daily schedule:
5$tasks = [ 'meetings', 'more meetings', 'asking devs why it’s still broken' ];

Stage 4: Team Management – The Art of Debugging People

Turns out, managing a team isn’t that different from writing code. You just replace semicolons with people’s emotions.

One day, your junior dev is super productive, smashing out PRs. The next day, they're asking you what “git” is. So, I had to learn how to be flexible:

1// New responsibilities as a manager:
2if (devsAreStuck()) {
3    // Try turning it off and on again (the dev, not the code)
4    giveEncouragement();
5} else {
6    // When things are magically working
7    justSmileAndNod();
8}

Stage 5: Balancing Code and Chaos – The Daily Grind

Balancing coding with management is like trying to deploy on a Friday—risky but sometimes necessary. Some days, I’m deep in code. Other days, I’m figuring out why half the team’s in a Slack battle over the most efficient way to name a variable.

As a senior manager, it’s my job to make sure the team runs smoothly:

1function keepTeamHappy()
2{
3    // Main function for a successful team
4    while (teamProductivity < 100) {
5        encourage();
6        drinkCoffee();
7        debug();
8    }
9}

The trick is staying connected to both worlds. I still code, mentor, and review PRs, but now I also navigate the tricky waters of people management.

Final Stage: Lessons Learned – Lead with Humor, and Maybe Coffee

Here’s what I’ve learned on this journey from developer to senior manager:

  1. Code is easy, people are hard: Debugging a null pointer error? Easy. Figuring out why Bob from QA keeps using tabs instead of spaces? That’s the real challenge.
  2. Mentoring is like pair programming, but with emotions: Explaining code to someone new is the best way to remind yourself how little you understand. But it’s also incredibly rewarding.
  3. Coffee powers everything: Whether it’s fixing bugs or attending meetings, coffee is the fuel. Seriously, it should come with the title.
  4. Take a break, laugh at yourself: This job can be stressful, so it’s important to laugh—at your mistakes, at your team’s memes, and definitely at the inevitable “works on my machine” excuses.

Conclusion: Becoming a senior manager with developer responsibilities has been a wild ride. From writing code to mentoring interns and leading a team, it’s been a journey of growth, patience, and, yes, a whole lot of coffee.

So, if you’re thinking about stepping into management, just remember: it’s like being a developer… except now you’re debugging humans, too.