As for me, my manager changed position and his position was vacant. As I moved from senior dev to project lead a few month before, my choice was between continuing as a project lead or become a manager. I like helping people grow and assumed that I could do that much better as a manger. In retrospect, this was true. There is more responsibility and less coding. But there is always something you have to give uo, either way. I don’t want to go higher than were I am know, though. I closely in touch with the ones that do tech, and I love tech.

As a side node: I am in R&D. Things are different there compared to production. Also: I enjoy coding as a hobby, so I am not detached from what brought me into the industry.