It usually happens at the end of a mentoring session. Or at the end of the workshop. We’ve covered the agenda, the team, the roadmap. And then the leader lowers their voice a little, like they’re about to confess something.
“Alex… I think I want to go back to being an IC.”
Not a struggling first-time manager. Sometimes a director. Sometimes someone who has led people for ten years and led them quite well. And every time, the same thing in their eyes: guilt. As if wanting to build again were some kind of failure.
I talked about this in this week’s episode of the podcast, and I want to make it even more practical here. Because going back to an individual contributor role isn’t a confession. It’s a career decision. And it deserves to be made on purpose.
This Is Not a “Weakness” Move Anymore
For years, I would hear this maybe once or twice a year. Now it’s becoming a regular topic. And the data says I’m not imagining it.
- The LeadDev Engineering Leadership Report 2026 surveyed 600 engineering leaders: one in three managers is considering leaving management to become an IC, and 45% of leaders say they’re working more hours than a year ago.
- Gartner predicted back in 2024 that through 2026, 20% of organizations will use AI to flatten their structure, eliminating more than half of their current middle management positions. The same prediction warns about remaining managers feeling overwhelmed with additional direct reports.
So the math underneath leadership is changing. AI absorbs more of the coordination, reporting and answer-giving work that used to justify a management layer. At the same time, deep technical judgment becomes more visible and more valuable, not less. If you want the bigger picture of how team expectations are shifting, go back to my conversation with Jordan Cutler in episode #166. One of the best conversations I’ve had in years.
The Ladder Was Always a Shaky Story
Here’s the uncomfortable part. Many of us didn’t become leaders because we were the best candidates for leadership. We became leaders because we were great at the job before it.
Research by Benson, Li and Shue, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, found exactly that: firms tend to promote their best current performers rather than the people with the best managerial potential (the famous Peter Principle, finally with data behind it).
So for some leaders, going back to IC isn’t undoing a success. It’s correcting a fit the system decided for them. And it doesn’t have to be forever either. Charity Majors wrote years ago about the engineer/manager pendulum: moving back and forth between the tracks is a legitimate path, and often the way strong technical leaders are built. Everything is a choice. Including coming back to leadership later.
The Real Obstacle Isn’t the Org Chart. It’s Your Old Contract.
What stops people usually isn’t the company. It’s identity. Somewhere along the way, the title got glued to self-worth, status and being taken seriously. Stepping away from it can feel like losing all three at once.
Underneath sits a hidden contract you’ve probably never written down: “My worth is proven by climbing the ladder.” If you go back to IC without renegotiating it, you’ll carry the old scorecard into a role it was never designed to measure. And you’ll feel like you’re failing by a metric that no longer applies to you.
The new contract has to be written on purpose: “My worth here is proven by the depth and quality of what I build, not by how many people report to me.” Not a consolation prize. A different, fully valid measure of value.
Herminia Ibarra makes a related point in Working Identity: we don’t figure out who we’re becoming by thinking alone, we discover it by doing and testing. So give yourself room to experiment before you announce anything.
How to Decide (Instead of Drifting Into It)
- Make the two-column list. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Left: what you think you’ll lose. Right: what you think you’ll gain. Do it before you talk yourself into it or out of it based on how it will sound to other people. Then circle every point that is really about other people’s opinion. You’ll be surprised how many there are.
- Have the direct conversation. Not quiet disengagement, not a surprise resignation. Try: “I think I create more value doing deep technical work right now than managing others.” That’s useful information for your organization, not a resignation letter. Talk it through with a coach, a mentor, or someone in your network who has already made this move.
- Write your new contract. One specific thing that proves your worth in the new role. Keep it somewhere visible. The old identity voice will show up, uninvited. When it does, you’ll be ready.
And If Someone on Your Team Says It to You
If you lead leaders, this conversation will land on your desk sooner or later. Don’t treat it as a loss, and please don’t answer it with a bigger title. Ask what kind of work actually gives them energy, and then check whether your organization offers a real technical path or only a nice slide about one. I wrote about this in How to Lead Engineers Who Don’t Want Your Career Path? and in Your Engineering Ladder Is Lying to You.
Keeping good judgment in your organization matters more than keeping it in a specific box on the org chart.
The Bottom Line
There are no good or wrong answers here. There’s your answer. You own your career, not your old beliefs, not your family’s expectations, not your LinkedIn headline. Leadership can be exhausting. IC work can be too. But staying in a role only because leaving it “looks bad” is the most expensive option of all.
So, here’s my question for you: if nobody ever saw your title again, what work would you choose on Monday morning?
Want the full conversation? Listen to episode #207 of the Leman Tech Leadership Podcast. If you want tools like this every week, join the free Leadership Pulse. And if you want the whole toolbox in one place, grab my book From Code to People.
