I went from developer to product manager. I'm better at developing and have more earning potential as a developer, but I can't stop product managing because I just can't handle staying heads down on a development project while there are big picture problems to solve at product/business level.

I think my ideal situation is running a one man software business where I can do both development and product management, but I've yet to start a business large enough to go full time .

Currently a product owner. I’m in the process of going back to development full time. The day to day rollercoaster of ambiguity is not my thing. Some days are easy, others are chaos. Hasn’t been good for my mental health. I miss the days of having a task with clear acceptance criteria and a feedback loop that’s easy to identify and optimize. God I miss coding.

Have you considered going the route of technical product manager? It seems like those projects have more rigid criteria than typical product management with all the business ambiguity.

Who wrote those acceptance criteria for you?

I run a startup that has a team now so I need to do primarily product / product management by necessity.

yup, back and forth. I was a PM at msft then went to get my phd and did a lot of dev, then into dev mgmt, and now I’m doing some PM work again! I’ve found it all pretty fun, but in different ways.