The rewards come slowly compared to individual contributor work, but they tend to be more interesting to me because I can see the impact of my work on people and projects in a more global way. It can be someone finally getting that promotion they have been working hard to get, features shipping with a reasonable cadence when you were struggling to get things out before, or realizing the risk you took 3 months ago by firing someone had a large positive impact on your team’s productivity and happiness.
Engineering management is extremely rewarding, and even though you don’t see things changing on the day to day as much as you do when you’re an individual contributor, you can usually look back a month and find something you influenced that impacted your team and/or your company.
@rowasc! 