100 Days

A hundred days ago, I left management.

That wasn't how it felt at the time; I'd just been made redundant after several years in leadership.

But when the dust settled, I realised this was something I'd been quietly wanting for a while: a return to building things myself.

I've tried to be open about how this transition has been good for me. Friends in similar positions have found the insight useful - either to inform a decision or to temper expectations once it's made.

So what are the big differences 100 days in?

The feedback loop is refreshing

The feedback loop in management plays out over quarters or years. A conversation you have with a direct report has immediate impact, but the feedback comes far down the line. Someone applies for a promotion and gets it because you gave them good advice; or someone resigns because they have been quietly harbouring negative feelings due to a decision you made.

In a traditional engineering role, the feedback loop is day-to-day. You write unit tests that intentionally fail, you code your feature change until those tests pass, and you ship it for review. The code either works or it doesn't. If you missed something, it pops when it hits production. Even then your response is obvious: return to the start of the loop.

Scale-up habits die hard

Years in fintech and management shape you in subtle ways. You start to think exclusively in terms of frameworks, alignment, and stakeholders. Every task becomes a project, every project needs a doc, and every decision requires a meeting.

Some of that remains necessary in a focused product company. There is still compliance and customers expect a stable service. These things should remain consistent. Predictable is powerful.

But when you return to a more focused, specialised engineering organisation, you see how much of the corporate framework is just inertia. How often we mistake coordination for progress.

Here, we talk, we decide, we build. If it needs heavy process then we implement it. Efficiency is the default, process is case-by-case. It's an inversion of the corporate approach.

Relearning the craft

Coming back to hands-on engineering after years in leadership has been humbling. I was, and am, rusty. I reach for patterns that don't quite fit anymore. I look up syntax I once knew instinctively.

But I'm also sharper in other ways. Years of reviewing architecture and mentoring engineers have rewired how I think about design and clarity. The output might be slower, but the intent is stronger.

And the best part is the camaraderie. I bring context; my teammates bring modern fluency and technical depth. Together, we meet in the middle. They make me faster; I help them see the bigger picture. It's a better loop than I expected.

Ego and perspective

Stepping down from "Head of Engineering" to "Staff Engineer" looks like a demotion on paper. And yes, it messes with your identity for a bit.

There's a part of you that misses being in every conversation, influencing strategy, managing people. But then you start delivering again - and you realise how much lighter it feels to just do the work.

I'm not delegating problems anymore. I'm solving them. My code runs. And I still get to mentor, guide, and shape decisions - just without the meetings, frameworks, and dotted lines.

Rediscovering impact

One thing I've learned at Approov is that focus scales. You can be lean and still serious. You can be efficient and still ambitious. You can do meaningful work without fifty people in the room.

When something breaks, you fix it. When something works, you build on it. Things happen for a reason, rather than everything happening because it's prescribed by the internal literature.

You can literally see your impact in the metrics, the customer attitude, and the day-to-day operations. Your perspective shifts toward what customers actually care about. These combine to prove the viability of a product without the need for an internal committee.

It's energising.

The pendulum swings

Charity Majors has discussed the Engineer/Manager Pendulum for many years. As sage as her wisdom is, it's often hard to relate until you've lived it.

This experience has proven to me that careers aren't linear. They oscillate. You take a position of leadership for influence and people skills. You make individual contributions for clarity and sharpness. Neither of those is actually tied to a role.

Both skill sets are valid. Both skill sets matter.

In conclusion

To my friends who were made redundant from leadership roles or are simply considering a change of pace: I know that shift can feel like failure. But it isn't. It's a recalibration.

You're not going backwards. You're rediscovering what brought you here. Sharpening the old tools to augment everything you learned at cruise altitude. You will be better for your experience.

A hundred days in, I can say it plainly: I should have done this sooner.