Fair enough, but you are still taking the stance that in a hiring situation, the company has more to lose by hiring a non-perfect fit. What about people who take a job that they want very much, and are a good match, but are laid off, or the company goes out of business? Didn’t they risk just as much instead of going to work somewhere else?

Stressedmanager,

When I was younger, I said I wanted to be a manager, but I think what I really meant is what is now called a “technical lead” or a “software architect”. Such a person does software development, but in consideration with larger, longer-term strategic goals about what the project (and perhaps the company) should be. There is a lot of brainstorming, design work, prototyping, etc. There isn’t a lot of what is usually asked for in most s/w eng interviews, such as highly detailed questions (”What tcpdump option prints out DNS packets?”) or questions unrelated to the job at hand (”I see you have Perl experience on your résumé - are you sure you want this network software development job?”).

There are also a lot of s/w engineers who go into management because it provides more job security. The managers, after all, are usually the ones making the hiring decisions.

As I wrote, I am at a point in my carreer where it feels as if I have to make the choice soon. A friend sent me this blog post, which further made me want to go back to more technical work again.

But I am still not sure what to do… Any advice?

When interviewing mostly what I look for is continuous employment for one or more years at the same job. If they’re a contractor, were they kept on or, even better, asked back for another project? If they’ve been with the same company for a long time, have they progressed or been promoted? If a candidate has left a lead or managerial role for a technical role, I’d expect to have them explain in the interview why they did so, or why they are interested in doing so. I’d also be sure that their skills are up to snuff…..