It seems clear to me that you need to be leading now, not being a cog with no influence.
I also resisted "being a manager, for a long time. It's like it was a dirty word and I thought it would be turning my back on what I was good at and enjoyed. But the truth is, you are no longer enjoying what you previously did and have not grown for 5 to 10 years.
Being a leader is not being a line manager. Managing some people may be part of being a leader, but it's not the main focus. I manage about 3 people and mostly I just delegate stuff to them. It's not that hard and isn't what I spend most time on.
What I really enjoy is that I get to set direction, come up with the strategy and use my years of experience to build things the right way.
So I would advise trying to get into a leadership role and give it a try. It has to be something where you can really set direction. You do not want to be a middle manager just doing people management, and there are plenty of roles like that. Worst case - you get a break from what's driving you mad right now and some fresh perspective. Best case is you actually find some new passion.
Thanks for the insights. But I've already been at this kind of position in the past (tech-lead role involving managing the devs). I hated the management part and even had to recover from a burn-out of a huge and messy project.
Also I care too deeply about the quality of the software being developed and am very much perfectionist, which usually translates into lots of frustration for both me and the team.
> Also I care too deeply about the quality of the software being developed and am very much perfectionist, which usually translates into lots of frustration for both me and the team.
This is at odds with business needs, very usually. So it doesn't surprise me that you feel people don't listen. Very few business are making money trying to pursue perfect software or quality software - if any.
Like security, trying to be perfectionist won't move any business need/project forward as we all have the real world to deal with, constraints on time / budget / scope are part of decision making
Honestly, I'd say you need to try working with more distance from the devs and work at a higher, more strategic level.
Instead of worrying about how a particular bit of software is built, you should be creating better ways of building. Enhancing processes, making the technology better, improving how dev work is delivered, rather than the minutia of a single development project.
Being a perfectionist tech lead directly managing the devs on a project sounds exhausting for yourself and the team.
I also resisted "being a manager, for a long time. It's like it was a dirty word and I thought it would be turning my back on what I was good at and enjoyed. But the truth is, you are no longer enjoying what you previously did and have not grown for 5 to 10 years.
Being a leader is not being a line manager. Managing some people may be part of being a leader, but it's not the main focus. I manage about 3 people and mostly I just delegate stuff to them. It's not that hard and isn't what I spend most time on.
What I really enjoy is that I get to set direction, come up with the strategy and use my years of experience to build things the right way.
So I would advise trying to get into a leadership role and give it a try. It has to be something where you can really set direction. You do not want to be a middle manager just doing people management, and there are plenty of roles like that. Worst case - you get a break from what's driving you mad right now and some fresh perspective. Best case is you actually find some new passion.