Being a Player Coach: Is it the best or the worst of both worlds?

At some stage in your design career, you may find yourself at a bit of a crossroads. One path is the path of the craftsperson; a path you’re very experienced and comfortable with. Down the other path is the lure of management, and all the power and riches that entails. If you’re lucky enough to work at a cool Silicon Valley tech company, there’s a clear process for choosing either path. You can decide to be an individual contributor (IC) or a manager, and — in theory at least — the choice you make won’t have an effect on your earning potential or career prospects. For everybody else, management typically means a higher salary, a higher status and more upwards mobility. However it also means doing a job you have no previous experience in, and will probably suck at for the next few years. So rather than a crossroads, it can often feel like a precipice.

As a designer transitioning into management, it feels like the sensible thing to do is to find a middle path; a role where you can still be doing day-to-day design, while looking after a handful of designers. This is often described as being a player-coach; somebody who leads their team from the pitch rather than the sidelines. So you look around for roles and end up joining an exciting sounding company as their first design leader. Happy days. Or so you think. Jump forwards 6 months and…