Many developers pursue management because it looks like the only path upward, then resent losing hands-on work. Most large product companies now have staff and principal tracks at comparable levels. We work through what you actually want your week to look like in two years, because a reluctant manager damages a team and their own record simultaneously.
This is the hardest part to reconstruct after the fact. Who did you mentor, what were they unable to do before, what can they do now. Whose promotion case did you support. Which junior engineer became the owner of a component because you handed it over deliberately. Specific names and outcomes, not a claim about mentoring.
Expect an engineer who is disengaged, a timeline slipping with a committed date, a strong performer blocking their teammates, and a decision you disagree with implementing anyway. Panels are listening for whether you gather facts before acting and whether you take responsibility rather than describe the team as the problem.
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It is possible but harder externally, because a hiring panel needs some evidence you have carried responsibility beyond your own tasks. That evidence can come from owning a project across teams, running the on-call rotation, or driving a hiring process. The most reliable route remains an internal move, where your manager already knows what you have handled and the risk is lower for them.
Enough to stay credible and not enough to stay current, which is uncomfortable at first. Most engineering managers review designs, participate in architecture discussions and occasionally read code, but stop holding critical delivery on their own hands. Managers who keep taking sprint-critical tasks tend to become the bottleneck, and it is one of the most common first-year mistakes.
It varies far more than people assume. At many companies a first-line engineering manager sits at a comparable band to a senior or staff engineer, and the increase comes with scope rather than automatically with the title. Moving into management purely for compensation is usually a poor trade. Moving because you prefer building teams over building systems tends to hold up over time.
It is done regularly and is treated as normal at most product companies, but timing matters. Returning within a year or two is straightforward. After four or five years away from code, rebuilding a recent technical track record takes deliberate effort and often a level conversation. If you are unsure, keeping some hands-on involvement early makes the return path considerably easier.
