New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Lead developer but I just don't enjoy management

Ask HN: Lead developer but I just don't enjoy management
44 by throwaway040991 | 12 comments on Hacker News.
Throwaway for obvious reasons. I work for a company doing interactive media work (think conferences touch screens, cool-ish 3D websites, museum-like installations and such). The company specializes in short films / adverts but we have a small interactive department (~6 people) that I am the head of. It's a small company which grew very quickly - I became the head of the department because I was one of the first developers at the company and basically created and sold our first interactive projects. With time, we pitched more and more of those, and here we are today. As a result of this the company lacks a lot of structure and "middleware" positions - e.g. I do all the hiring myself, and while we do have marketing / project managers, their knowledge is tailored towards films / adverts and don't have a strong knowledge about projects with a programming-heavy background. The thing is, I've tried and tried to do the best job I can but I just don't enjoy management. I can deal with clients fine, but I don't like having to check on others to ensure they're working as they should. I don't like hiring people and doing interviews. I don't like having to worry about "capacity" when getting a new project. I don't like doing performance reviews and making sure that people's "efficiency" is as high as. I don't like having to supervise every proposal going out to make sure our marketing department didn't promise some technical heresy. I don't like giving people "shitty" tasks to do (because there will always be some). I don't like sitting with someone for a couple hours to explains how I'd like things done, or having to fix something they've done wrong. And of course I don't like being in endless meetings. I like sitting down and solving problems with code, getting a brief and build something cool. but as of recently I'm lucky if I can allocate 25% of my time to this, while the rest is all these tasks I don't really enjoy. I tried telling myself that it's a childish and idealistic way of thinking and that it's all a part of career progression regardless of where you work at, giving myself time to try and mature into the position, and trying my best to address all the pipeline issues and technical shortcomings of the company. but it's been a long time now, the way I think about this hasn't changed at all and I feel it's really eating into my mental health now - I find myself procrastinating on tasks like hiring, putting off one-on-ones, and other destructive behaviour. I've been in the company for a long time and I love the people in it, the culture, and the fact that because of my position I have a lot of freedom to do things the way I want. I'm also quite invested financially as I have some vested shares which should hopefully mature in 4/5 years. But I'm not lying if I say that I haven't woken up with a passion or spring in my step to go to work in a long time and I don't know if I can subject myself to 5 more years of this. Any advice from people who have been in similar positions?