Show More As everyone mulls their New Year’s resolutions for 2021, many developers will be thinking about the next step in their career, whether that involves mastering a new language or finally taking that move into management. Unlike many professions, software engineers don’t have to move into management to progress in their career. There are principal and distinguished engineers as well as architecture and CTO career paths to pursue for developers who are fully committed to their craft and want to stay hands-on with the technology. [ But if you are interested in management, your key responsibilities become more focused on the team than your personal expertise or output. Developer managers are primarily responsible for hiring, retaining, and nurturing talent; translating and balancing incoming requests; setting achievable and repeatable execution goals; and managing technical debt.