Just my take on this Was in a similar situation a few years, where i decided to move from a highly technical role to management. I was forced to. Google has made the role of a 'technical advisor' redundant. After a year and a half in the management role, here is what i feel about it. - In any company ,i guess, the best positions are either way up ( senior management) or way down ( tech). Middle management is the worst position to be. Its like being caught 'between the devil and the deep blue sea' In middle mgmt, you are attacked from all sides. The upper management blames you for all delivery/people issues and your team blames you for all (upper) management decisions/policies. -. Managing people is more challenging and tougher than fixing technical issues. Dealing/assessing humans is 10^100 times more complex than dealing with computers. Everyone is different, responds differently etc etc -. I believe in 'more responsibilities = greater freedom'.. With different teams working on different technologies, it was surprising easy to obtain a basic understanding of various technologies, just by sitting down with the team on a regular basis and discussing their work. No more late night fishing expeditions (on the web) to understand/learn about new stuff. -. You will be able to acquire some useful skills. Like talking a lot about things which you know the least, in a convincing and believable manner. There are definite benefits in picking up this skill, outside of work :-).