Lots and lots of Programmers

(following up on a previous post)

So when I did have only two developers on my team I was a coder like them. I used to assign myself the tasks I knew more about, and helped the others with their work. When I didn't want to disturb the workflow of my developers - I handled bugs which were on top priority instead of them. I simply had the time to do it along with the rest of my tasks. I learned new technologies, wrote complete modules in the system, mingled with other people's code (and refactored it when they weren't there to stop me) and basically - got my fingers dirty.

And dirt is important. I need the dirt to feel at home (rather poor hygiene, I know) and to be able to comfortably advise and talk about the stuff we deal with. I don't think I can be a good team leader in a project if I'm not familiar with the technology (granted, others would say that the implementation details should not concern the team lead. I strongly disagree.)

Things changed when I crossed the five developers line, though: I could not complete my personal programming tasks - I simply had no time for them. There are some tasks I'm still dragging to this day, which are my responsibility, and because I know way more about how to do them then other people - I'm reluctant to give them up (and, like always, it's not that the others developers have nothing to do - they have their hands full)

This hoarding behavior of mine has got to stop, I realize this, but the day I finally manage to pull it off will be a rather sad day for me. I'll be losing touch with code. I don't really know what happens next.

Now, don't get me wrong - I understand the correlation between managing a lot of people and the chance of further personal advancement. I don't think I'll be managing a division in Comverse any time soon, but this is a step on the right track.

But still...
Code...